BY  THE  AUTHORs^ELIZABETH 
^  HER  GERMAN  GARDEN 


04 


\    -   /^W^t(lt<^^^      P^(v^ 


J-ilrOJU^JL^^^^M^ 


^JL  Qd^J^^ 


THE   CARAVANERS 


BY   THE    SAME   AUTHOR 


Elizabeth  and  Her  German  Garden 

Adventures  of  Elizabeth  in  Riigen 

Frdulein  Schmidt  and  Mr.  Anstruther 

Princess  Priscilla's  Fortnight  . 

The  Solitary  Summer 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/caravanersOOeliziala 


The  fitful  flicker  of  the  lanterns  played  over  rapidly 
cooling  eggs  and  grave  faces 


THE   CARAVANERS 


BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF 
"ELIZABETH  AND  HER  GERMAN  GARDEN' 


Caunfess  NATijRrn'im 


ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  ARTHUR  LITLE 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1910 


ALI.  RIGHTS  HSSERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  Ot  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


COFXRIGHT,  1909,  BY  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


SRLF 
URt 


ILLUSTRATIONS     /d 


The  fitful  flicker  of  the  lanterns  played  over  rap- 
idly cooling  eggs  and  grave  faces  Frontispiece 


FACING  PAGE 


I  never  saw  such  little  shoes         ....         14 

Edelgard  most  inconsiderately  leaving  me  to  bear 
the  entire  burden  of  opening  and  shutting  our 
things  .......         38 

The  sun  shone  its  hottest  while  we  slowly  sur- 
mounted this  last  obstacle      ....         50 

It  was  an  unnerving  spectacle      ....         80 

"  Dear  Baron,"  said  she,  "  do  you  think  it  is  wrong 

to  carry  stew-pots  ? "      .         .         .         .         .       100 

Thus,  as  it  were,  with  blacking,  did  I  cement  my 

friendship  with  Lord  Sigismund      .         .         .       102 

Edelgard  posing  —  and  what  a  pose  ;  good  heavens, 

what  a  pose !         .       '  .         .         .         .         .114 

"But  surely  not  here,"  murmured  Frau  von  Eck- 

thum    ........       124 

The  two  nondescripts,  who  were  passing,  lingered 

{      to  look  .         .         .         .         .         .         .       134 


vi  ILLUSTRATIONS 

MCING  PAGE 

"But,  Heber  Otto,  is  it  then  my  fault  that  you 

have  forgotten  the  paper?"    ....       142 

"Do  you,  Jellaby,"  I  then  inquired,  "really  un- 
derstand how  best  to  treat  a  sausage?"  .         .       182 

"  'Ere  *e  is  " 200 

An  imposing  lady  in  the  pew  in  front  of  us  sat  side- 
ways in  her  corner  and  examined  us  with  calm 
attention      .......       230 

The  old  gentleman  was  in  the  act  of  addressing 

me  in  his  turn       ......       268 

Gentle  as  my  voice  was,  it  yet  made  her  start       .       294 


THE   CARAVANERS 


THE  CARAVANERS 

CHAPTER  I 

IN  JUNE  this  year  there  were  a  few  fine  days,  and 
we  supposed  the  summer  had  really  come  at 
last.  The  effect  was  to  make  us  feel  our  flat 
(which  is  really  a  very  nice,  well-planned  one  on  the 
second  floor  at  the  corner  overlooking  the  cemetery, 
and  not  at  all  stuffy)  but  a  dull  place  after  all,  and 
think  with  something  like  longing  of  the  country. 
It  was  the  year  of  the  fifth  anniversary  of  our 
wedding,  and  having  decided  to  mark  the  occasion 
by  a  trip  abroad  in  the  proper  holiday  season  of 
August  we  could  not  afford,  neither  did  we 
desire,  to  spend  money  on  trips  into  the  country 
in  June.  My  wife,  therefore,  suggested  that  we 
should  devote  a  few  afternoons  to  a  series  of 
short  excursions  within  a  radius  of,  say,  from  five 
to  ten  miles  round  our  town,  and  visit  one  after 
the  other  those  of  our  acquaintances  who  live 
near  enough  to  Storchwerder  and  farm  their  own 
estates.  "In  this  way,"  said  she,  "we  shall  get 
much  fresh  air  at  little  cost." 
After  a  time  I  agreed.    Not  immediately,  of 


4  THE  CARAVANERS 

course,  for  a  reasonable  man  will  take  care  to 
consider  the  suggestions  made  by  his  wife  from 
every  point  of  view  before  consenting  to  follow 
them  or  allowing  her  to  follow  them.  Women 
do  not  reason:  they  have  instincts;  and  instincts 
would  land  them  in  strange  places  sometimes  if 
it  were  not  that  their  husbands  are  there  to  illumi- 
nate the  path  for  them  and  behave,  if  one  may  so 
express  it,  as  a  kind  of  guiding  and  very  clever 
glow-worm.  As  for  those  who  have  not  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  husbands,  the  flotsam  and 
jetsam,  so  to  speak,  of  their  sex,  all  I  can  say  is, 
God  help  them. 

There  was  nothing,  however,  to  be  advanced 
against  Edelgard's  idea  in  this  case;  on  the 
contrary,  there  was  much  to  commend  it.  We 
should  get  fresh  air;  we  should  be  fed  (well  fed, 
and,  if  we  chose,  to  excess,  but  of  course  we  know 
how  to  be  reasonable);  and  we  should  pay 
nothing.  As  Major  of  the  artillery  regiment 
stationed  at  Storchwerder  I  am  obliged  anyhow 
to  keep  a  couple  of  horses  (they  are  fed  at  the 
cost  of  the  regiment),  and  I  also  in  the  natural 
order  of  things  have  one  of  the  men  of  my  bat- 
talion in  my  flat  as  servant  and  coachman,  who 
costs  me  little  more  than  his  keep  and  may  not 
give  me  notice.  All,  then,  that  was  wanting  was 
a  vehicle,  and  we  could,  as  Edelgard  pointed 
out,  easily  borrow  our  Colonel's  wagonette  for  a 


THE  CARAVANERS  5 

tew  afternoons,  so  there  was  our  equipage  complete, 
and  without  spending  a  penny. 

The  estates  round  Storchwerder  are  big  and 
we  found  on  counting  up  that  five  calls  would 
cover  the  entire  circle  of  our  country  acquaintance. 
Theje  might  have  been  a  sixth,  but  for  reasons 
with  which  I  entirely  concurred  my  dear  wife  did 
not  choose  to  include  it.  Lines  have  to  be  drawn, 
and  I  do  not  think  an  altogether  bad  definition 
of  a  gentleman  or  a  lady  would  be  one  who  draws 
them.  Indeed,  Edelgard  was  in  some  doubt  as 
to  whether  there  should  be  even  five,  a  member 
of  the  five  (not  in  this  case  actually  the  land- 
owner but  the  brother  of  the  widowed  lady  owning 
it,  who  lives  with  her  and  looks  after  her  interests) 
being  a  person  we  neither  of  us  can  care  much 
about,  because  he  is  not  only  unsound  politically, 
with  a  decided  leaning  disgraceful  in  a  man  of 
his  birth  and  which  he  hardly  takes  any  trouble 
to  hide  toward  those  views  the  middle  classes 
and  Socialist  sort  of  people  call  (God  save  the 
mark!)  enlightened,  but  he  is  also  either  unable 
or  unwilling  —  Edelgard  and  I  could  never  make 
up  our  minds  which  —  to  keep  his  sister  in  order. 
Yet  to  keep  the  woman  one  is  responsible  for  in 
order  whether  she  be  sister,  or  wife,  or  mother, 
or  daughter,  or  even  under  certain  favourable 
conditions  aunt  (a  difficult   race    sometimes,    as 


6  THE  CARAVANERS 

may  be  seen  by  the  case  of  Edelgard's  Aunt 
Bockhiigel,  of  whom  perhaps  more  later)  is  really 
quite  easy.  It  is  only  a  question  of  beginning 
in  time,  as  you  mean  to  go  on  in  fact,  and  of 
being  especially  firm  whenever  you  feel  internally 
least  so.  It  is  so  easy  that  I  never  could  under- 
stand the  difficulty.  It  is  so  easy  that  when  my 
wife  at  this  point  brought  me  my  eleven  o'clock 
bread  and  ham  and  butter  and  interrupted  me 
by  looking  over  my  shoulder,  I  smiled  up  at  her, 
my  thoughts  still  running  on  this  theme,  and 
taking  the  hand  that  put  down  the  plate  said, 
"Is  it  not,  dear  wife?" 

"Is  what  not?"  she  asked  —  rather  stupidly 
I  thought,  for  she  had  read  what  I  had  writ- 
ten to  the  end;  then  without  giving  me  time  to 
reply  she  said,  "Are  you  not  going  to  write 
the  story  of  our  experiences  in  England  after 
all.  Otto?" 

"Certainly,"  said  I. 

"To  lend  round  among  our  relations  next 
winter  ? " 

"Certainly,"  said  I. 

"Then  had  you  not  better  begin  ?" 

"Dear  wife,"  said  I,  "it  is  what  I  am  doing." 

"Then,"  said  she,  "do  not  waste  time  going 
off  the  rails." 

And  sitting  down  in  the  window  she  resumed 
her  work  of  enlarging  the  armholes  of  my  shirts. 


THE  CARAVANERS  7 

This,  I  may  remark,  was  tartness.  Before  she 
went  to  England  she  was  never  tart.  However, 
let  me  continue. 

I  wonder  what  she  means  by  rails.  (I  shall 
revise  all  this,  of  course,  and  no  doubt  will  strike 
out  portions)  I  wonder  if  she  means  I  ought 
to  begin  with  my  name  and  address.  It  seems 
unnecessary,  for  I  am  naturally  as  well  known 
to  persons  in  Storchwerder  as  the  postman.  On 
the  other  hand  this  is  my  first  attempt  (which 
explains  why  I  wonder  at  all  what  Edelgard  may 
or  may  not  mean,  beginners  doing  well,  I  suppose, 
to  be  humble)  at  what  poetic  and  literary  and 
other  persons  of  bad  form  call,  I  believe,  woo- 
ing the  Muse.  What  an  expression!  And  I 
wonder  what  Muse.  I  would  like  to  ask  Edel- 
gard whether  she  —  but  no,  it  would  almost  seem 
as  if  I  were  seeking  her  advice,  which  is  a  rever- 
sing of  the  proper  relative  positions  of  husband 
and  wife.  So  at  this  point,  instead  of  adopting 
a  course  so  easily  disastrous,  I  turned  my  head 
and  said  quietly: 

"Dear  wife,  our  English  experiences  did  begin 
with  our  visits  to  the  neighbours.  It  it  had 
not  been  for  those  visits  we  would  probably  not 
last  summer  have  seen  Frau  von  Eckthum  at  all, 
and  if  we  had  not  come  within  reach  of  her  per- 
suasive tongue  we  would  have  gone  on  our  silver 
wedding  journey  to  Italy  or  Switzerland,  as  we 


8  THE  CARAVANERS 

had  so  often  planned,  and  left  that  accursed 
island  across  the  Channel  alone." 

I  paused;  and  as  Edelgard  said  nothing,  which 
is  what  she  says  when  she  is  unconvinced,  I  con- 
tinued with  the  patience  I  always  show  her  up 
to  the  point  at  which  it  would  become  weakness, 
to  explain  the  difference  between  the  exact  and 
thorough  methods  of  men,  their  liking  for  going 
to  the  foot  of  a  matter  and  beginning  at  the 
real  beginning,  and  the  jumping  tendencies  of 
women,  who  jump  to  things  such  as  conclusions 
without  paying  the  least  heed  to  all  the  impor- 
tant places  they  have  passed  over  while  they 
were,  so  to  speak,  in  the  air. 

"But  we  get  there  first,"  said  Edelgard. 

I  frowned  a  little.  A  few  months  ago  — 
before,  that  is,  our  time  on  British  soil  —  she 
would  not  have  made  such  a  retort.  She  used 
never  to  retort,  and  the  harmony  of  our  wedded 
life  was  consequently  unclouded.  I  think  she 
saw  me  frown  but  she  took  no  notice  —  another 
novelty  in  her  behaviour;  so,  after  waiting  a 
moment,  I  determined  to  continue  the  narrative. 

But  before  I  go  straight  on  with  it  I  should 
like  to  explain  why  we,  an  officer  and  his  wife 
who  naturally  do  not  like  spending  money,  should 
have  contemplated  so  costly  a  holiday  as  a  trip 
abroad.  The  fact  is,  for  a  long  time  past  we  had 
made  up  our  minds  to  do  so  in  the  fifth  year  of 


THE  CARAVANERS  9 

our  marriage,  and  for  the  following  reason: 
Before  I  married  Edelgard  I  had  been  a  widower 
for  one  year,  and  before  being  a  widower  I  was 
married  for  no  fewer  than  nineteen  years.  This 
sounds  as  though  I  must  be  old,  but  I  need  not 
tell  my  readers  who  see  me  constantly  that  I  am 
not.  The  best  of  all  witnesses  are  the  eyes;  also, 
I  began  my  marrying  unusually  young.  My 
first  wife  was  one  of  the  Mecklenburg  Lunewitzes, 
the  elder  (and  infinitely  superior)  branch.  If 
she  had  lived,  I  would  last  year  have  been  cele- 
brating our  silver  wedding  on  August  ist,  and 
there  would  have  been  much  feasting  and  merry- 
making arranged  for  us,  and  many  acceptable 
gifts  in  silver  from  our  relations,  friends,  and 
acquaintances.  The  regiment  would  have  been 
obliged  to  recognize  it,  and  perhaps  our  two  ser- 
vants would  have  clubbed  together  and  expressed 
their  devotion  in  a  metal  form.  All  this  I  feel  I 
have  missed,  and  through  no  fault  of  my  own. 
I  fail  to  see  why  I  should  be  deprived  of  every 
benefit  of  such  a  celebration,  for  have  I  not,  with 
an  interruption  of  twelve  months  forced  upon 
me,  been  actually  married  twenty-five  years  ? 
And  why,  because  my  poor  Marie-Luise  was 
unable  to  go  on  living,  should  I  have  to  attain 
to  the  very  high  number  of  (practically)  five  and 
twenty  years'  matrimony  without  the  least  notice 
being  taken  of  it  ?     I  had  been  explaining  this  to 


10  THE  CARAVANERS 

Edelgard  for  a  long  time,  and  the  nearer  the  date 
drew  on  which  in  the  natural  order  of  things  I 
would  have  been  reaping  a  silver  harvest  and 
have  been  put  in  a  position  to  gauge  the  esteem 
in  which  I  was  held,  the  more  emphatic  did  I 
become.  Edelgard  seemed  at  first  unable  to 
understand,  but  she  was  very  teachable,  and 
gradually  found  my  logic  irresistible.  Indeed, 
once  she  grasped  the  point  she  was  even  more 
strongly  of  opinion  than  I  was  that  something 
ought  to  be  done  to  mark  the  occasion,  and  quite 
saw  that  if  Marie-Luise  failed  me  it  was  not  my 
fault,  and  that  I  at  least  had  done  my  part  and 
gone  on  steadily  being  married  ever  since.  From 
recognizing  this  to  being  indignant  that  our  friends 
would  probably  take  no  notice  of  the  anniversary 
was  but,  for  her,  a  step;  and  many  were  the  talks 
we  had  together  on  the  subject,  and  many  the 
suggestions  we  both  of  us  made  for  bringing  our 
friends  round  to  our  point  of  view.  We  finally 
decided  that,  however  much  they  might  ignore 
it,  we  ourselves  would  do  what  was  right,  and 
accordingly  we  planned  a  silver-honeymoon  trip 
to  the  land  proper  to  romance,  Italy,  beginning 
it  on  the  first  of  August,  which  was  the  date  of 
my  marriage  twenty-five  years  before  with 
Marie-Luise. 

I  have  gone  into  this  matter  at  some  length 
because  I  wished  to  explain  clearly  to  those  of 


THE  CARAVANERS  ii 

our  relations  who  will  have  this  lent  to  them 
why  we  undertook  a  journey  so,  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  things,  extravagant;  and  having,  I  hope, 
done  this  satisfactorily,  will  now  proceed  with  the 
narrative. 

We  borrowed  the  Colonel's  wagonette;  I 
wrote  five  letters  announcing  our  visit  and  ask- 
ing (a  mere  formality,  of  course)  if  it  would  be 
agreeable;  the  answers  arrived  assuring  us  in 
every  tone  of  well-bred  enthusiasm  that  it  would ; 
I  donned  my  parade  uniform ;  Edelgard  put  on  her 
new  summer  finery;  we  gave  careful  instructions 
to  Clothilde,  our  cook,  helping  her  to  carry  them 
out  by  locking  everything  up;  and  off  we  started 
in  holiday  spirits,  driven  by  my  orderly,  Hermann, 
and  watched  by  the  whole  street. 

At  each  house  we  were  received  with  becoming 
hospitality.  They  were  all  families  of  our  own 
standing,  members  of  that  chivalrous.  God-fearing 
and  well-born  band  that  upholds  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  the  Fatherland  and  gathers  in  spirit  if  not 
(owing  to  circumstances)  in  body,  like  a  pro- 
tecting phalanx  around  our  Emperor's  throne. 
First  we  had  coffee  and  cakes  and  a  variety  of 
sandwiches  (at  one  of  the  houses  there  were  no 
sandwiches,  only  cakes,  and  we  both  discussed 
this  unaccountable  omission  during  the  drive 
home);  then  I  was  taken  to  view  the  pigs  by  our 
host,  or  the  cows,  or  whatever  happened  to  be  his 


12  THE  CARAVANERS 

special  pride,  but  in  four  cases  out  of  the  five  it 
was  pigs,  and  while  I  was  away  Edelgard  sat  on 
the  lawn  or  the  terrace  or  wherever  the  family 
usually  sat  (only  one  had  a  terrace)  and  conversed 
on  subjects  interesting  to  women-folk,  such  as 
Clothilde  and  Hermann  and  I  know  not  what; 
then,  after  having  thoroughly  exhausted  the  pigs 
and  been  in  my  turn  thoroughly  exhausted  by 
them,  for  naturally  a  Prussian  officer  on  active 
service  cannot  be  expected  to  take  the  same  in- 
terest in  these  creatures  so  long  as  they  are  raw  as 
a  man  does  who  devotes  his  life  to  them,  we 
rejoined  the  ladies  and  strolled  in  the  lighter  talk 
suited  to  our  listeners  about  the  grounds,  endeav- 
ouring with  our  handkerchiefs  to  drive  away  the 
mosquitoes,  till  summoned  to  supper;  and  after 
supper,  which  usually  consisted  of  one  excellent 
hot  dish  and  a  variety  of  cold  ones,  preceded  by 
bouillon  in  cups  and  followed  by  some  elegant 
sweet  and  beautiful  fruit  (except  at  Frau  von 
Eckthum's,  our  local  young  widow's,  where  it  was 
a  regular  dinner  of  six  or  seven  courses,  she  being 
what  is  known  as  ultra-modern,  her  sister  having 
married  an  Englishman),  after  supper,  I  repeat, 
having  sat  a  while  smoking  on  the  lawn  or  ter- 
race drinking  coffee  and  liqueurs  and  secretly 
congratulating  ourselves  on  not  having  in  our 
town  to  live  with  so  many  and  such  hungry 
mosquitoes,  we  took  our  leave  and  drove  back 


THE  CARAVANERS  13 

to  Storchwerder,  refreshed  always  and  sometimes 
pleased  as  well. 

The  last  of  these  visits  was  to  Frau  von 
Eckthum  and  her  brother  Graf  Flitz  von  Flitz- 
burg,  who,  as  is  well  known,  being  himself  un- 
married, lives  with  her  and  looks  after  the  estate 
left  by  the  deceased  Eckthum,  thereby  stepping 
into  shoes  so  comfortable  that  they  may  more 
properly  be  spoken  of  as  slippers.  All  had 
gone  well  up  to  that,  nor  was  I  conscious  till  much 
later  that  that  had  not  gone  well  too;  for  only  on 
looking  back  do  we  see  the  distance  we  have  come 
and  the  way  in  which  the  road,  at  first  so  promis- 
ing, led  us  before  we  knew  where  we  were  into  a 
wilderness  plentiful  in  stones.  During  our  first 
four  visits  we  had  naturally  talked  about  our  plan 
to  take  a  trip  in  August  in  Italy.  Our  friends, 
obviously  surprised,  and  with  the  expression  on 
their  faces  that  has  its  source  in  thoughts  of 
legacies,  first  enthusiastically  applauded  and  then 
pointed  out  that  it  would  be  hot.  August,  they 
said,  would  be  an  impossible  month  in  Italy:  go 
where  we  would  we  should  not  meet  a  single 
German.  This  had  not  struck  us  before,  and  after 
our  first  disappointment  we  willingly  listened  to 
their  advice  rather  to  choose  Switzerland,  with  its 
excellent  hotels  and  crowds  of  our  countrymen. 
Several  times  in  the  course  of  these  conversations 
did  we  try  to  explain  the  honeymoon  nature  of 


14  THE  CARAVANERS 

the  journey,  but  were  met  with  so  much  of  what 
I  strongly  suspect  to  have  been  wilful  obtuseness 
that  to  our  chagrin  we  began  to  see  there  was  prob- 
ably nothing  to  be  done.  Edelgard  said  she 
wished  it  would  occur  to  them  if,  owing  to  the 
unusual  circumstances,  they  did  not  intend  to 
give  us  actual  ash-trays  and  match-boxes,  to 
join  together  in  defraying  the  cost  of  the  wedding 
journey  of  such  respectable  silver-honeymooners ; 
but  I  do  not  think  that  at  any  time  they  had  the 
least  intention  of  doing  anything  at  all  for  us  — 
on  the  contrary,  they  made  us  quite  uneasy  by 
the  sums  they  declared  we  would  have  to  dis- 
burse ;  and  on  our  last  visit  (to  Frau  von  Eckthum) 
happening  to  bewail  the  amount  of  good  Ger- 
man money  that  was  going  to  be  dragged  out  of 
us  by  the  rascally  Swiss,  she  ( Frau  von  Eck- 
thum) said,  "Why  not  come  to  England?" 

At  the  moment  I  was  so  much  engaged  men- 
tally reprobating  the  way  in  which  she  was  lying 
back  in  a  low  garden  chair  with  one  foot  crossed 
over  the  other  and  both  feet  encased  in  such 
thin  stockings  that  they  might  just  as  well  not 
have  been  stockings  at  all,  that  I  did  not  imme- 
diately notice  the  otherwise  striking  expression, 
"Come."  "Go"  would  of  course  have  been 
the  usual  and  expected  form;  but  the  substitution, 
I  repeat,  escaped  me  at  the  moment  because  of 
my  attention  being  otherwise  engaged.     I  never 


THE  CARAVANERS  15 

saw  such  little  shoes.  Has  a  woman  a  right  to 
be  conspicuous  at  the  extremities  ?  So  con- 
spicuous —  Frau  von  Eckthum's  hands  also  easily 
become  absorbing  —  that  one  is  unable  connectedly 
to  follow  the  conversation  ?  I  doubt  it :  but  she 
is  an  attractive  lady.  There  sat  Edelgard,  straight 
and  seemly,  the  perfect  flower  of  a  stricter  type 
of  virtuous  German  womanhood,  her  feet  prop- 
erly placed  side  by  side  on  the  grass  and  clothed, 
as  I  knew,  in  decent  wool  with  the  flat-heeled 
boots  of  the  Christian  gentlewoman,  and  I  must 
say  the  type  —  in  one's  wife,  that  is  —  is  prefer- 
able. I  rather  wondered  whether  Flitz  noticed 
the  contrast  between  the  two  ladies.  I  glanced 
at  him,  but  his  face  was  as  usual  a  complete  blank. 
I  wondered  whether  he  could  or  could  not  make 
his  sister  sit  up  if  he  had  wished  to;  and  for  the 
hundredth  time  I  felt  I  never  could  really  like 
the  man,  for  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  brother 
one's  sister  should  certainly  sit  up.  She  is,  how- 
ever, an  attractive  lady:  alas  that  her  stockings 
should  be  so  persistently  thin. 

"England,"  I  heard  Edelgard  saying,  "is  not, 
I  think,  a  suitable  place.'' 

It  was  then  that  I  consciously  noticed  that 
Frau  von  Eckthum  had  said  "Come." 

"Why  not?"  she  asked;  and  her  simple  way 
of  asking  questions,  or  answering  them  with  others 
of  her  own  without  waiting  to   adorn  them  or 


i6  THE  CARAVANERS 

round  them  off  with  the  title  of  the  person 
addressed,  has  helped,  I  know,  to  make  her  unpopu- 
lar in  Storchwerder  society. 

"I  have  heard,"  said  Edelgard  cautiously,  no 
doubt  bearing  in  mind  that  to  hosts  whose  sister 
had  married  an  Englishman  and  was  still  living 
with  him  one  would  not  say  all  one  would  like  to 
about  it,  "I  have  heard  that  it  is  not  a  place  to  go 
to  if  the  object  is  scenery/* 

"Oh?"  said  Frau  von  Eckthum.  Then  she 
added  —  intelligently,  I  thought  —  "  But  there 
always  is  scenery." 

"Edelgard  means  lofty  scenery,"  said  I  gently, 
for  we  were  both  holding  cups  of  the  Eckthum 
tea  (this  was  the  only  house  in  which  we  were 
made  to  drink  tea  instead  of  our  aromatic  and  far 
more  filling  national  beverage)  in  our  hands,  and 
I  have  always  held  one  ought  to  humour  the 
persons  whose  hospitality  one  happens  to  be 
enjoying  —  "Or  enduring,"  said  Edelgard  cleverly 
when,  on  our  way  home,  I  mentioned  this  to  her. 

"Or  enduring,"  I  agreed  after  a  slight  pause, 
forced  on  reflection  to  see  that  it  is  not  true 
hospitality  to  oblige  your  visitors  to  go  without 
their  coffee  by  employing  the  unworthy  and  bar- 
barically  simple  expedient  of  not  allowing  it  to 
appear.  But  of  course  that  was  Flitz.  He 
behaves,  I  think,  much  too  much  as  though  the 
place  belonged  to  him. 


THE  CARAVANERS  17 

Flitz,  who  knows  England  well,  having  spent 
several  years  there  at  our  Embassy,  said  it  was 
the  most  delightful  country  in  the  world.  The 
unpatriotic  implication  contained  in  this  assertion 
caused  Edelgard  and  myself  to  exchange  glances, 
and  no  doubt  she  was  thinking,  as  I  was,  that  it 
would  be  a  sad  and  bad  day  for  Prussia  if  many 
of  its  gentleman  had  sisters  who  made  misguided 
marriages  with  foreigners,  the  foreign  brother-in- 
law  being  so  often  the  thin  end  of  that  wedge  which 
at  its  thick  one  is  a  denial  of  our  right  to  regard 
ourselves  as  specially  raised  by  Almighty  God 
to  occupy  the  first  place"  among  the  nations,  and 
a  dislike  (I  have  heard  with  my  own  ears  a  man 
at  a  meeting  express  it)  an  actual  dislike  —  I  can 
only  call  it  hideous  —  of  the  glorious  cement  of 
blood  and  iron  by  means  of  which  we  intend 
to  stick  there. 

"But  I  was  chiefly  thinking,"  said  Frau  von 
Eckthum,  her  head  well  back  in  the  cushions  and 
her  eyes  fixed  pensively  on  the  summer  clouds 
sailing  over  our  heads,  "of  what  you  were  say- 
ing about  expense." 

"Dear  lady,"  I  said,  "I  have  been  told  by 
all  who  have  done  it  that  travelling  in  England  is 
the  most  expensive  holiday  you  can  take.  The 
hotels  are  ruinous  as  well  as  bad,  the  meals  are 
uneatable  as  well  as  dear,  the  cabs  cost  you  a 
fortune,  and  the  inhabitants  are  rude." 


i8  THE  CARAVANERS  i 

I  spoke  with  heat,  because  I  was  roused  (justly) 
by  Flitz's  unpatriotic  attitude,  but  it  was  a  tem- 
pered heat  owing  to  the  undoubted  (Storchwerder 
cannot  deny  it)  personal  attractiveness  of  our 
hostess.  Why  are  not  all  women  attractive  ? 
What  habitual  lambs  our  sex  would  become  if 
they  were. 

"Dear  Baron,"  said  she  in  her  pretty,  gentle 
voice,  "do  come  over  and  see  for  yourself.  I 
would  like,  I  think,  to  convert  you.  Look  at 
this"  —  she  picked  up  some  papers  lying  on 
the  grass  by  her  chair,  and  spreading  out  one 
showed  me  a  picture  —  **do  you  not  think  it  nice  ? 
And,  if  you  want  to  be  economical,  it  only  costs 
fourteen  pounds  for  a  whole  month." 

The  picture  she  held  out  to  me  was  one  bear- 
ing a  strong  resemblance  to  the  gipsy  carts  that 
are  continually  (and  very  rightly)  being  sent 
somewhere  else  by  our  local  police;  a  little  less 
gaudy  perhaps,  a  little  squarer  and  more  solid, 
but  undoubtedly  a  near  relation. 

"It  is  a  caravan,"  said  Frau  von  Eckthum,  in 
answer  to  the  question  contained  in  my  eyebrows; 
and  turning  the  sheet  she  showed  me  another 
picture  representing  the  same  vehicle's  inside. 

Edelgard  got  up  and  looked  over  my  shoulder. 

What  we  saw  was  certainly  very  nice.  Edel- 
gard said  so  at  once.  There  were  flowered  cur- 
tains, and  a  shelf  with  books,  and  a  comfortable 


THE  CARAVANERS  19 

chair  with  a  cushion  near  a  big  window,  and  at 
the  end  two  pretty  beds  placed  one  above  the 
other  as  in  a  ship. 

"A  thing  like  this,"  said  Frau  von  Eckthum, 
"does  away  at  once  with  hotels,  waiters,  and 
expense.  It  costs  fourteen  pounds  for  two  per- 
sons for  a  whole  month,  and  all  your  days  are 
spent  in  the  sun." 

She  then  explained  her  plan,  which  was  to 
hire  one  of  these  vehicles  for  the  month  of 
August  and  lead  a  completely  free  and  bohemian 
existence  during  that  time,  wandering  through 
the  English  lanes,  which  she  described  as  flowery, 
and  drawing  up  for  the  night  in  a  secluded  spot 
near  some  little  streamlet,  to  the  music  of  whose 
gentle  rippling,  as  Edelgard  always  easily  inclined 
to  sentiment  suggested,  she  would  probably  be 
lulled  to  sleep. 

"Come  too,"  said  she,  smiling  up  at  us  as 
we  looked  over  her  shoulder. 

"Two  hundred  and  eighty  marks  is  fourteen 
pounds,"  said  I,  making  mental  calculations. 

"For  two  people,"  said  Edelgard,  obviously 
doing  the  same. 

"No  hotels,"  said  our  hostess. 

"No  hotels,"  echoed  Edelgard. 

"Only  lovely  green  fields,"   said  our  hostess. 

"And  no  waiters,"  said  Edelgard. 

**Yes,  no  horrid  waiters,"  said  our  hostess. 


20  THE  CARAVANERS 

"Waiters  are  so  expensive,"  said  Edelgard. 

"You  wouldn't  see  one,"  said  our  hostess. 
"Only  a  nice  child  in  a  clean  apron  from  a  farm 
bringing  eggs  and  cream.  And  you  move  about 
the  whole  time,  and  see  the  country  in  a  way  you 
never  would  going  from  place  to  place  by  train." 

"But,"  said  I  shrewdly,  "if  we  move  about 
something  must  either  pull  or  push  us,  and  that 
something  must  also  be  paid  for." 

"Oh,  yes,  there  has  to  be  a  horse.  But  think 
of  all  the  railway  tickets  you  won't  buy  and  all  the 
porters  you  won't  tip,"  said  Frau  von  Eckthum. 

Edelgard  was  manifestly  impressed.  Indeed, 
we  both  were.  If  it  were  a  question  of  being 
in  England  for  little  money  or  being  in  Switzer- 
land for  much  we  felt  unanimously  that  it  was 
better  to  be  in  England.  And  then  to  travel 
through  it  in  one  of  these  conveyances  was  so 
distinctly  original  that  we  would  be  objects  of 
the  liveliest  interest  during  the  succeeding  win- 
ter gaieties  in  Storchwerder.  "The  von  Ottringels 
are  certainly  all  that  is  most  modern,"  we  could 
already  hear  our  friends  saying  to  each  other,  and 
could  already  see  in  our  mind's  eye  how  they 
would  press  round  us  at  soirees  and  bombard  us 
with  questions.  We  should  be  the  centre  of 
attraction. 

"And  think  of  the  nightingales!"  cried  Edelgard, 
suddenly  recollecting  those  poetic  birds. 


THE  CARAVANERS  21 

"In  August  they're  like  Germans  in  Italy," 
said  Flitz,  to  whom  I  had  mentioned  our  reason 
for  giving  up  the  idea  of  travelling  in  that  country. 

"How  so?"  said  Edelgard,  turning  to  him 
with  the  slight  instinctive  stiffening  of  every 
really  virtuous  German  lady  when  speaking  to 
an  unrelated  (by  blood)  man. 

"They're  not  there,"  said  Flitz. 

Well,  of  course  the  moment  we  were  able  to 
look  in  our  Encyclopaedia  at  home  we  knew  as 
well  as  he  did  that  they  do  not  sing  in  August, 
but  I  do  not  see  how  townsfolk  are  to  keep  these 
odds  and  ends  of  information  lying  loose  about  in 
their  heads.  We  do  not  have  the  bird  in  Storch- 
werder  and  are  therefore  unable  to  study  its 
habits  at  first  hand  as  Flitz  can,  but  I  know  that 
all  the  pieces  of  poetry  I  have  come  across  men- 
tion nightingales  before  they  have  done,  and 
the  consequent  perfectly  natural  impression  left 
on  my  mind  was  that  they  were  always  more  or 
less  about.  But  I  do  not  like  Flitz's  tone,  and 
never  shall.  It  is  true  I  have  not  actually  seen 
him  do  it,  but  one  feels  instinctively  that  he  is 
laughing  at  one;  and  there  are  different  ways  of 
laughing,  and  not  all  of  them  appear  on  the  face. 
As  for  politics,  if  I  were  not  as  an  officer  debarred 
from  alluding  to  them  and  were  led  to  discuss  them 
with  him,  I  have  no  doubt  that  each  discussion 
would  end  in  a  duel.    That  is,  if  he  would  fight. 


22  THE  CARAVANERS 

The  appalling  suspicion  has  just  crossed  my 
mind  that  he  would  not.  He  is  one  of  those 
dreadful  persons  who  cloak  their  cowardice  behind 
the  garb  of  philosophy.  Well,  well,  I  see  I  am 
growing  angry  with  a  man  ten  miles  away,  whom 
I  have  not  seen  for  months  —  I,  a  man  of  the  world 
sitting  in  the  calm  of  my  own  flat,  surrounded  by 
quiet  domestic  objects  such  as  my  wife,  my  shirt, 
and  my  little  meal  of  bread  and  ham.  Is  this 
reasonable?  Certainly  not.  Let  me  change  the 
subject. 

The  long,  then,  and  the  short  of  our  visit  to 
Graf  Flitz  and  his  sister  in  June  last  was  that  we 
returned  home  determined  to  join  Frau  von  Eck- 
thum's  party,  and  not  a  little  full  of  pleasurable 
anticipations.  When  she  does  talk  she  has  a  per- 
suasive tongue.  She  talked  more  at  this  time 
than  she  ever  did  afterward,  but  of  course  there 
were  reasons  for  that  which  I  may  or  may  not 
disclose.  Edelgard  listened  with  something  like 
rapt  interest  to  her  really  picturesque  descriptions, 
or  rather  prophecies,  for  she  had  not  herself  done 
it  before,  of  the  pleasures  of  camp  life;  and  I 
wish  it  to  be  clearly  understood  that  Edelgard, 
who  has  since  taken  the  line  of  telling  people  it 
was  I,  was  the  one  who  was  swept  off  her  usually 
cautious  feet  and  who  took  it  upon  herself  without 
waiting  for  me  to  speak  to  ask  Frau  von  Eckthum 
to  write  and  hire  another  of  the  carts  for  us. 


THE  CARAVANERS  2^ 

Frau  von  Eckthum  laughed,  and  said  she  was 
sure  we  would  like  it.  Flitz  himself  smoked  in 
silence.  And  Edelgard  developed  a  sudden  elo- 
quenc  in  regard  to  natural  phenomena  such  as 
moons  and  poppies  that  would  have  done  credit 
to  a  young  and  sentimental  girl.  "Think  of 
sitting  in  the  shade  of  some  mighty  beech  tree," 
she  said,  for  instance  (she  actually  clasped  her 
hands),  "with  the  beams  of  the  sinking  sun 
slanting  through  its  branches,  and  doing  one's 
needlework.'* 

And  she  said  other  things  of  the  same  sort, 
things  that  made  me,  who  knew  she  was  going  to 
be  thirty  next  birthday,  gaze  upon  her  with  a 
deep  surprise. 


CHAPTER  II 

I  HAVE  decided  not  to  show  Edelgard  my  man- 
uscript again,  and  my  reason  is  that  I  may 
have  a  freer  hand.  For  the  same  reason  I  will 
not,  as  we  at  first  proposed,  send  it  round  by  itself 
among  our  relations,  but  will  either  accompany 
it  in  person  or  invite  our  relations  to  a  cozy  beer- 
evening,  with  a  simple  little  cold  something  to 
follow,  and  read  aloud  such  portions  of  it  as  I 
think  fit,  omitting  of  course  much  that  I  say  about 
Edelgard  and  probably  also  a  good  deal  that  I 
say  about  everybody  else.  A  reasonable  man  is 
not  a  woman,  and  does  not  willingly  pander  to 
a  love  of  gossip.  Besides,  as  I  have  already 
hinted,  the  Edelgard  who  came  back  from  England 
is  by  no  means  the  Edelgard  who  went  there. 
It  will  wear  off,  I  am  confident,  in  time,  and  we 
will  return  to  the  status  quo  ante  —  (how  naturally 
that  came  out:  it  gratifies  me  to  see  I  still  remem- 
ber) —  a  status  quo  full  of  trust  and  obedience 
on  the  one  side  and  of  kind  and  wise  guidance 
on  the  other.  Surely  I  have  a  right  to  refuse  to 
be  driven,  except  by  a  silken  thread .?  When  I, 
noticing  a  tendency  on  Edelgard's  part  to  attempt 

24 


THE  CARAVANERS  25 

to  substitute,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  leather,  asked 
her  the  above  question,  will  it  be  believed  that 
what  she  answered  was  Bosh  ? 

It  gave  me  a  great  shock  to  hear  her  talk,  like 
that.  Bosh  is  not  a  German  expression  at  all. 
It  is  purest  English.  And  it  amazes  me  with 
what  rapidity  she  picked  it  and  similar  portions 
of  the  language  up,  adding  them  in  quantities 
to  the  knowledge  she  already  possessed  of  the 
tongue,  a  fairly  complete  knowledge  (she  having 
been  well  educated),  but  altogether  excluding 
words  of  that  sort.  Of  course  I  am  aware  it  was 
all  Jellaby*s  fault  —  but  more  of  him  in  his  proper 
place;  I  will  not  now  dwell  on  later  incidents 
while  my  narrative  is  still  only  at  the  point  where 
everything  was  eager  anticipation  and  preparation. 

Our  caravan  had  been  hired;  I  had  sent,  at 
Frau  von  Eckthum's  direction,  the  money  to  the 
owner,  the  price  (unfortunately)  having  to  be 
paid  beforehand;  and  August  the  first,  the  very 
day  of  my  wedding  with  poor  Marie-Luise,  was 
to  see  us  start.  Naturally  there  was  much  to  do 
and  arrange,  but  it  was  pleasurable  work  such  as 
getting  a  suit  of  civilian  clothes  adapted  to  the 
uses  it  would  be  put  to,  searching  for  stock- 
ings to  match  the  knickerbockers,  and  for  a  hat 
that  would  be  useful  in  both  wet  weather  and 
sunshine. 

"  It  will  be  all  sunshine,"  said  Frau  von  Eckthum 


26  THE  CARAVANERS 

with  her  really  unusually  pretty  smile  (it  includes 
the  sudden  appearance  of  two  dimples)  when  I 
expressed  fears  as  to  the  effect  of  rain  on  the 
Panama  that  I  finally  bought  and  which,  not 
being  a  real  one,  made  me  anxious. 

We  saw  her  several  times  because  of  our  need 
for  hints  as  to  luggage,  meeting  place,  etc.,  and  I 
found  her  each  time  more  charming.  When  she 
was  on  her  feet,  too,  her  dress  hid  the  shoes; 
and  she  was  really  helpful,  and  was  apparently 
looking  forward  greatly  to  showing  us  the  beauties 
of  her  sister's  more  or  less  native  land. 

As  soon  as  my  costume  was  ready  I  put  it  on 
and  drove  out  to  see  her.  The  stockings  had 
been  a  difficulty  because  I  could  not  bear,  accus- 
tomed as  I  am  to  cotton  socks,  their  woollen  feet. 
This  was  at  last  surmounted  by  cutting  off  their 
feet  and  sewing  my  ordinary  sock  feet  on  to  the 
woollen  legs.  It  answered  splendidly,  and  Edel- 
gard  assured  me  that  with  care  no  portion  of  the 
sock  (which  was  not  of  the  same  colour)  would 
protrude.  She  herself  had  sent  to  Berlin  to 
Wertheim  for  one  of  the  tailor-made  dresses  in 
his  catalogue,  which  turned  out  to  be  of  really 
astonishing  value  for  the  money,  and  in  which 
she  looked  very  nice.  With  a  tartan  silk  blouse 
and  a  little  Tyrolese  hat  and  a  pheasant's  feather 
stuck  in  it  she  was  so  much  transformed  that  I 
declared   I   could  not  believe  it  was  our  silver 


THE  CARAVANERS  27 

wedding  journey,  and  I  felt  exactly  as  I  did 
twenty-five  years  before. 

"But  it  is  not  our  silver  wedding  journey," 
she  said  with  some  sharpness. 

"Dear  wife,"  I  retorted  surprised,  "you  know 
very  well  that  it  is  mine,  and  what  is  mine  is 
also  by  law  yours,  and  that  therefore  without  the 
least  admissible  logical  doubt  it  is  yours." 

She  made  a  sudden  gesture  with  her  shoulders 
that  was  almost  like  impatience;  but  I,  knowing 
what  victims  the  best  of  women  are  to  incompre- 
hensible moods,  went  out  and  bought  her  a  pretty 
little  bag  with  a  leather  strap  to  wear  over  one 
shoulder  and  complete  her  attire,  thus  proving  to 
her  that  a  reasonable  man  is  not  a  child  and 
knows  when  and  how  to  be  indulgent. 

Frau  von  Eckthum,  who  was  going  to  stay 
with  her  sister  for  a  fortnight  before  they  both 
joined  us  (the  sister,  I  regretted  to  hear,  was  coming 
coo),  left  in  the  middle  of  July.  Flitz,  at  that 
time  incomprehensibly  to  me,  made  excuses  for 
not  taking  part  in  the  caravan  tour,  but  since 
then  light  has  been  thrown  on  his  behaviour: 
he  said,  I  remember,  that  he  could  not  leave 
his  pigs. 

"Much  better  not  leave  his  sister,"  said  Edel- 
gard  who,  I  fancy,  was  just  then  a  little  envious 
of  Frau  von  Eckthum. 

"Dear  wife,"  I  said  gently,  "we  shall  be  there 


28  THE  CARAVANERS      ' 

to  take  care  of  her  and  he  knows  she  is  safe 
in  our  hands.  Besides,  we  do  not  want  FHtz. 
He  is  the  last  man  I  can  imagine  myself  ever 
wanting." 

It  was  perfectly  natural  that  Edelgard  should  be 
a  little  envious,  and  I  felt  it  was  and  did  not  there- 
fore in  any  way  check  her.  I  need  not  remind 
those  relatives  who  will  next  winter  listen  to  this 
that  the  Flitzes  of  Flitzburg,  of  whom  Frau  von 
Eckthum  was  one,  are  a  most  ancient  and  still 
more  penniless  family.  Frau  von  Eckthum  and 
her  gaunt  sister  (last  time  she  was  staying  in  Prussia 
both  Edelgard  and  I  were  struck  with  her  extreme 
gauntness)  each  married  a  wealthy  man  by  two 
most  extraordinary  strokes  of  luck;  for  what 
man  nowadays  will  marry  a  girl  who  cannot  take, 
if  not  the  lion's  share,  at  least  a  very  substantial 
one  of  the  household  expenses  upon  herself? 
What  is  the  use  of  a  father  if  he  cannot  provide 
his  daughter  with  the  money  required  suitably  to 
support  her  husband  and  his  children  ?  I  myself 
have  never  been  a  father,  so  that  I  am  qualified  to 
speak  with  perfect  impartiality;  that  is,  strictly, 
I  was  one  twice,  but  only  for  so  few  minutes  each 
time  that  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  count.  The 
two  von  Flitz  girls  married  so  young  and  so  well, 
and  have  been,  without  in  any  way  really  deserving 
it,  so  snugly  wrapped  in  comfort  ever  since  (Frau 
von  Eckthum  actually  losing  her  husband  two 


THE  CARAVANERS  29 

years  after  marriage  and  coming  into  everything) 
that  naturally  Edelgard  cannot  be  expected  to 
like  it.  Edelgard  had  a  portion  herself  of  six 
thousand  marks  a  year  besides  an  unusual  quantity 
of  house  linen,  which  enabled  her  at  last  —  she 
was  twenty-four  when  I  married  her  —  to  find  a 
good  husband;  and  she  cannot  understand  by 
what  wiles  the  two  sisters,  without  a  penny  or  a 
table  cloth,  secured  theirs  at  eighteen.  She  does 
not  see  that  they  are  —  "were"  is  the  better  word 
in  the  case  of  the  gaunt  sister  —  attractive ;  but 
then  the  type  is  so  completely  opposed  to  her 
own  that  she  would  not  be  likely  to.  Certainly  I 
agree  that  a  married  woman  verging,  as  the  sister 
must  be,  on  thirty  should  settle  down  to  a  smooth 
head  and  at  least  the  beginnings  of  a  suitable 
embonpoint.  We  do  not  want  wives  like  lieu- 
tenants in  a  cavalry  regiment;  and  Edelgard  is 
not  altogether  wrong  when  she  says  that  both 
Frau  von  Eckthum  and  her  sister  make  her  think 
of  those  lean  and  elegant  young  men.  Your  lean 
woman  with  her  restlessness  of  Hmb  and  brain  is 
far  indeed  removed  from  the  soft  amplitudes  and 
slow  movements  of  her  who  is  the  ideal  wife  of 
every  German  better-class  bosom.  Privately, 
however,  I  feel  I  can  at  least  understand  that  there 
may  have  been  something  to  be  said  at  the  time 
for  the  Englishman's  conduct,  and  I  more  than 
understand  that  of  the  deceased  Eckthum.     No 


30  THE  CARAVANERS 

one  can  deny  that  his  widow  is  undoubtedly  — 
well,  well;   let  me  return  to  the  narrative. 

We  had  naturally  told  everybody  we  met  what 
we  were  going  to  do,  and  it  was  intensely  amusing 
to  see  the  astonishment  created.  Bad  health  for 
the  rest  of  our  days  was  the  smallest  of  the  evils 
predicted.  Also  our  digestions  were  much  com- 
miserated. "Oh,"  said  I  with  jaunty  recklessness 
at  that,  "we  shall  live  on  boiled  hedgehogs,  pre- 
ceded by  mice  soup,"  —  for  I  had  studied  the 
article  Gipsies  in  our  Encyclopaedia,  and  discovered 
that  they  often  eat  the  above  fare. 

The  faces  of  our  friends  when  I  happened  to 
be  in  this  jocose  vein  were  a  study.  "God  in 
heaven,'*  they  cried,  "what  will  become  of  your 
poor  wife?" 

But  a  sense  of  humour  carries  a  man  through 
anything,  and  I  did  not  allow  myself  to  be  daunted. 
Indeed  it  was  not  likely,  I  reminded  myself  some- 
times when  inclined  to  be  thoughtful  at  night, 
that  Frau  von  Eckthum,  who  so  obviously  was 
delicately  nurtured,  would  consent  to  eat  hedge- 
hogs or  risk  years  in  which  all  her  attractiveness 
would  evaporate  on  a  sofa  of  sickness. 

"Oh,  but  Frau  von  Eckthum !"  was  the 

invariable  reply,  accompanied  by  a  shrug  when 
I  reassured  the  ladies  of  our  -circle  by  pointing 
this  out. 

I  am  aware  Frau  von  Eckthum  is  unpopular 


THE  CARAVANERS  31 

in  Storchwerder.  Perhaps  it  is  because  the  art 
of  conversation  is  considerably  developed  there, 
and  she  will  not  talk.  I  know  she  will  not  go  to 
its  balls,  refuses  its  dinners,  and  turns  her  back 
on  its  coffees.  I  know  she  is  with  difficulty 
induced  to  sit  on  its  philanthropic  boards,  and 
when  she  finally  has  been  induced  to  sit  on  them 
does  not  do  so  after  all  but  stays  at  home.  I 
know  she  is  different  from  the  type  of  woman 
prevailing  in  our  town,  the  plain,  flat-haired, 
tightly  buttoned  up,  God-fearing  wife  and  mother, 
who  looks  up  to  her  husband  and  after  her  children, 
and  is  extremely  intelligent  in  the  kitchen  and 
not  at  all  intelligent  out  of  it.  I  know  that  this 
is  the  type  that  has  made  our  great  nation  what 
it  is,  hoisting  it  up  on  ample  shoulders  to  the 
first  place  in  the  world,  and  I  know  that  we  would 
have  to  request  heaven  to  help  us  if  we  ever 
changed  it.     But  —  she  is  an  attractive  lady. 

Truly  it  is  an  excellent  thing  to  be  able  to  put 
down  one's  opinions  on  paper  as  they  occur 
to  one  without  risk  of  irritating  interruption  — 
I  hope  my  hearers  will  not  interrupt  at  the  read- 
ing aloud  —  and  now  that  I  have  at  last  begun 
to  write  a  book  —  for  years  I  have  intended  doing 
so  —  I  see  clearly  the  superiority  of  writing  over 
speaking.  It  is  the  same  kind  of  superiority 
that  the  pulpit  enjoys  over  the  (very  properly) 
muzzled  pews.     When,  during  my  stay  on  British 


32  THE  CARAVANERS 

soil,  I  said  anything,  however  short,  of  the  nature 
of  the  above  remarks  about  our  German  wives 
and  mothers,  it  was  most  annoying  the  way  I 
was  interrupted  and  the  sort  of  questions  that 
were  instantly  put  me  by,  chiefly,  the  gaunt  sister. 
But  of  that  more  in  its  place.  I  am  still  at  the 
point  where  she  had  not  yet  loomed  on  my  horizon, 
and  all  was  pleasurable  anticipation. 

We  left  our  home  on  August  ist,  punctually 
as  we  had  arranged,  after  some  very  hard-worked 
days  at  the  end  during  which  the  furniture  was 
beaten  and  strewn  with  napthalin  (against  moths), 
curtains,  etc.,  taken  down  and  piled  neatly  in 
heaps,  pictures  covered  up  in  newspapers,  and 
groceries  carefully  weighed  and  locked  up.  I 
spent  these  days  at  the  Club,  for  my  leave  had 
begun  on  the  25th  of  July  and  there  was  nothing 
for  me  to  do.  And  I  must  say,  though  the  dis- 
comfort in  our  flat  was  intense,  when  I  returned 
to  it  in  the  evening  in  order  to  go  to  bed  I  was 
never  anything  but  patient  with  the  unappe- 
tisingly  heated  and  disheveled  Edelgard.  And 
she  noticed  it  and  was  grateful.  It  would  be 
hard  to  say  what  would  make  her  grateful  now. 
These  last  bad  days,  however,  came  to  their 
natural  end,  and  the  morning  of  the  first  arrived 
and  by  ten  we  had  taken  leave,  with  many  last 
injunctions,  of  Clothilde  who  showed  an  amount 
of  concern  at  our  departure   that  gratified   us. 


THE  CARAVANERS  33 

and  were  on  the  station  platform  with  Hermann 
standing  respectfully  behind  us  carrying  our  hand 
luggage  in  both  his  gloved  hands,  and  with  what 
he  could  not  carry  piled  about  his  feet,  while 
I  could  see  by  the  expression  on  their  faces  that 
the  few  strangers  present  recognized  we  were 
people  of  good  family  or,  as  England  would  say, 
of  the  Upper  Ten.  We  had  no  luggage  for 
registration  because  of  the  new  law  by  which 
every  kilo  has  to  be  paid  for,  but  we  each  had 
a  well-filled,  substantial  hold-all  and  a  leather 
portmanteau,  and  into  these  we  had  succeeded 
in  packing  most  of  the  things  Frau  von  Eckthum 
had  from  time  to  time  suggested  we  might  want. 
Edelgard  is  a  good  packer,  and  got  far  more  in 
than  I  should  have  thought  possible,  and  what 
was  left  over  was  stowed  away  in  different  bags 
and  baskets.  Also  we  took  a  plentiful  supply 
of  vaseline  and  bandages.  "For,"  as  I  remarked 
to  Edelgard  when  she  giddily  did  not  want  to, 
quoting  the  most  modern  (though  rightly  dis- 
approved of  in  Storchwerder)  of  English  writers, 
"you  never  can  possibly  tell,"  —  besides  a  good 
sized  ox-tongue,  smoked  specially  for  us  by  our 
Storchwerder  butcher  and  which  was  later  on 
to  be  concealed  in  our  caravan  for  private  use 
in  case  of  need  at  night. 

The  train  did  not  start  till  10:45,  ^^t  we  wanted 
to  be  early  in  order  to  see  who  would  come  to 


34  THE  CARAVANERS 

see  us  off;  and  it  was  a  very  good  thing  we  were 
in  such  good  time,  for  hardly  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  had  elapsed  before,  to  my  dismay,  I  recol- 
lected that  I  had  left  my  Panama  at  home. 
It  was  Edelgard's  fault,  who  had  persuaded  me 
to  wear  a  cap  for  the  journey  and  carry  my  Panama 
in  my  hand,  and  I  had  put  it  down  on  some 
table  and  in  the  heat  of  departure  forgotten  it.  I 
was  deeply  annoyed,  for  the  whole  point  of  the 
type  of  costume  1  had  chosen  would  be  missed 
without  just  that  kind  of  hat,  and,  at  my  sudden 
exclamation  and  subsequent  explanation  of  my 
exclamation,  Edelgard  showed  that  she  felt  her 
position  by  becoming  exceedingly  red. 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  leave  her  there 
and  rush  off  in  a  droschke  to  our  deserted  flat. 
Hurrying  up  the  stairs  two  steps  at  a  time  and 
letting  myself  in  with  my  latch-key  I  immediately 
found  the  Panama  on  the  head  of  one  of  the 
privates  in  my  own  battalion,  who  was  lolling 
in  my  chair  at  the  breakfast-table  I  had  so  lately 
left  being  plied  with  our  food  by  the  miserable 
Clothilde,  she  sitting  on  Edelgard's  chair  and 
most  shamelessly  imitating  her  mistress's  manner 
when  she  is  affectionately  persuading  me  to  eat 
a  little  bit  more. 

The  wretched  soldier,  I  presume,  was  endeavour- 
ing to  imitate  me,  for  he  called  her  a  dear  little 
hare,  an  endearment  I  sometimes  apply  to  my 


THE  CARAVANERS  35 

wife,  on  Clothilde's  addressing  him  as  Edelgard 
sometimes  does  (or  rather  did)  me  in  her  softer 
moments  as  sweet  snail.  The  man's  imitation 
of  me  was  a  very  poor  affair,  but  Clothilde  hit 
my  wife  off  astoundingly  well,  and  both  creatures 
were  so  riotously  mirthful  that  they  neither  heard 
nor  saw  me  as  I  stood  struck  dumb  in  the  door. 
The  clock  on  the  wall,  however,  chiming  the 
half-hour  recalled  me  to  the  necessity  for  instant 
action,  and  rushing  forward  I  snatched  the  Panama 
off  the  amazed  man's  head,  hurled  a  furious 
dismissal  at  Clothilde,  and  was  out  of  the  house 
and  in  the  droschke  before  they  could  so  much 
as  pray  for  mercy.  Immediately  on  arriving  at 
the  station  I  took  Hermann  aside  and  gave  him 
instructions  about  the  removal  within  an  hour 
of  Clothilde,  and  then,  swallowing  my  agitation 
with  a  gulp  of  the  man  of  the  world,  I  was  able 
to  chat  courteously  and  amiably  with  friends 
who  had  collected  to  see  us  off,  and  even  to  make 
little  jokes  as  though  nothing  whatever  had  hap- 
pened. Of  course  directly  the  last  smile  had 
died  away  at  the  carriage  window  and  the  last 
handkerchief  had  been  fluttered  and  the  last 
promise  to  send  many  picture  postcards  had  been 
made,  and  our  friends  had  become  mere  black 
and  shapeless  masses  without  bodies,  parts  or 
passions  on  the  grey  of  the  receding  platform, 
I  recounted  the  affair  to  Edelgard,  and  she  was 


36  THE  CARAVANERS 

so  much  upset  that  she  actually  wanted  to  get  out 
at  the  next  station  and  give  up  our  holiday  and 
go  back  and  look  after  her  house. 

Strangely  enough,  what  upset  her  more  than  the 
soldier's  being  feasted  at  our  expense  and  more 
than  his  wearing  my  new  hat  while  he  feasted, 
was  the  fact  that  I  had  dismissed  Clothilde. 

"Where  and  when  am  I  to  get  another?" 
was  her  question,  repeated  with  a  plaintiveness 
that  was  at  length  wearisome.  "And  what  will 
become  of  all  our  things  now  during  our  absence  ? " 

"Would  you  have  had  me  not  dismiss  her 
instantly,  then?"  I  cried  at  last,  goaded  by  this 
persistence.  "Is  every  shamelessness  to  be 
endured  ?  Why,  if  the  woman  were  a  man  and 
of  my  own  station,  honour  would  demand  that 
I  should  fight  a  duel  with  her." 

"But  you  cannot  fight  a  duel  with  a  cook," 
said  Edelgard  stupidly. 

"Did  I  not  expressly  say  that  I  could  not?" 
I  retorted ;  and  having  with  this  reached  the  point 
where  patience  becomes  a  weakness  I  was  obliged 
to  put  it  aside  and  explain  to  her  with  vigour  that 
I  am  not  only  not  a  fool  but  decline  to  be  talked 
to  as  if  I  were.  And  when  I  had  done,  she 
having  given  no  further  rise  to  discussion,  we 
were  both  silent  for  the  rest  of  the  way  to  Berlin. 

This  was  not  a  bright  beginning  to  my  holiday, 
and  I  thought  with  some  gloom  of  the  difference 


THE  CARAVANERS  37 

between  it  and  the  start  twenty-five  years  before 
with  my  poor  Marie-Luise.  There  was  no 
Clothilde  then,  and  no  Panama  hat  (for  they 
were  not  yet  the  fashion),  and  all  was  peace. 
Unwilling,  however,  to  send  Edelgard,  as  the 
English  say,  any  longer  to  Coventry  —  we  are 
both  good  English  scholars  as  my  hearers  know  — 
when  we  got  into  the  droschke  in  Berlin  that  was 
to  take  us  across  to  the  Potsdamer  Bahnhof  (from 
which  station  we  departed  for  London  via  Flush- 
ing) I  took  her  hand,  and  turning  (not  without 
effort)  an  unclouded  face  to  her,  said  some  little 
things  which  enabled  her  to  become  aware  that 
I  was  willing  once  again  to  overlook  and  forgive. 

Now  I  do  not  propose  to  describe  the  journey 
to  London.  So  many  of  our  friends  know  people 
who  have  done  it  that  it  is  not  necessary  for  me 
to  dwell  upon  it  further  than  to  say  that,  being  all 
new  to  us,  it  was  not  without  its  charm  —  at  least, 
up  to  the  moment  when  it  became  so  late  that 
there  were  no  more  meals  taking  place  in  the  res- 
taurant-car and  no  more  attractive  trays  being 
held  up  to  our  windows  at  the  stations  on  the 
way.  About  what  happened  later  in  the  night  I 
would  not  willingly  speak:  suffice  it  to  say  that 
I  had  not  before  realized  the  immense  and  appar- 
ently endless  distance  of  England  from  the  good 
dry  land  of  the  Continent.  Edelgard,  indeed, 
behaved  the  whole  way  up  to  London  as  if  she 


38  THE  CARAVANERS 

had  not  yet  got  to  England  at  all;  and  I  was 
forced  at  last  to  comment  very  seriously  on  her 
conduct,  for  it  looked  as  much  like  wilfulness 
as  any  conduct  I  can  remember  to  have  witnessed. 
We  reached  London  at  the  uncomfortable 
hour  of  8  A.  M.,  or  thereabouts,  chilled,  unwell, 
and  disordered.  Although  it  was  only  the  second 
of  August  a  damp  autumn  draught  pervaded  the 
station.  Shivering,  we  went  into  the  sort  of 
sheep-pen  in  which  our  luggage  was  searched  for 
dutiable  articles,  Edelgard  most  inconsiderately 
leaving  me  to  bear  the  entire  burden  of  opening 
and  shutting  our  things,  while  she  huddled  into  a 
corner  and  assumed  (very  conveniently)  the  air  of 
a  sufferer.  I  had  to  speak  to  her  quite  sharply 
once  when  I  could  not  fit  the  key  of  her  port- 
manteau into  its  lock  and  remind  her  that  I  am 
not  a  lady's  maid,  but  even  this  did  not  rouse 
her,  and  she  continued  to  huddle  apathetically. 
It  is  absurd  for  a  wife  to  collapse  at  the  very 
moment  when  she  ought  to  be  most  helpful; 
the  whole  theory  of  the  helpmeet  is  shattered  by 
such  behaviour.  And  what  can  I  possibly  know 
about  Customs  ?  She  looked  on  quite  unmoved 
while  I  struggled  to  replace  the  disturbed  contents 
of  our  bags,  and  my  glances,  in  turn  appealing 
and  indignant,  did  not  make  her  even  raise  her 
head.  There  were  too  many  strangers  between 
us  for  me  to  be  able  to  do  more  than  glance,  so 


Edelgard  most  inconsiderately  leaving  me  to  bear  the  entire 
burden  of  opening  and  shutting  our  things 


THE  CARAVANERS  39 

reserving  what  I  had  to  say  for  a  more  private 
moment  I  got  the  bags  shut  as  well  as  I  could, 
directed  the  most  stupid  porter  (who  was  also 
apparently  deaf,  for  each  time  I  said  anything  to 
him  he  answered  perfectly  irrelevantly  with  the 
first  letter  of  the  alphabet)  I  have  ever  met  to 
conduct  me  and  the  luggage  to  the  refreshment 
room,  and  far  too  greatly  displeased  with  Edel- 
gard  to  take  any  further  notice  of  her,  walked 
on  after  the  man  leaving  her  to  follow  or  not 
as  she  chose. 

I  think  people  must  have  detected  as  I  strode 
along  that  I  was  a  Prussian  officer,  for  so  many 
looked  at  me  with  interest.  I  wished  I  had  had 
my  uniform  and  spurs  on,  so  that  for  once  the 
non-martial  island  could  have  seen  what  the  real 
thing  is  like.  It  was  strange  to  me  to  be  in  a 
crowd  of  nothing  but  civilians.  In  spite  of  the 
early  hour  every  arriving  train  disgorged  myriads 
of  them  of  both  sexes.  Not  the  flash  of  a  button 
was  to  be  seen;  not  the  clink  of  a  sabre  to  be 
heard;  but,  will  it  be  believed?  at  least  every 
third  person  arriving  carried  a  bunch  of  flowers, 
often  wrapped  in  tissue  paper  and  always  as  care- 
fully as  though  it  had  been  a  specially  good 
helegtes  B  rode  hen.  That  seemed  to  me  very 
characteristic  of  the  effeminate  and  non-military 
nation.  In  Prussia  useless  persons  like  old 
women  sometimes  transport  bunches  of  flowers 


40  THE  CARAVANERS 

from  one  point  to  another  —  but  that  a  man  should 
be  seen  doing  so,  a  man  going  evidently  to  his 
office,  with  his  bag  of  business  papers  and  his 
grave  face,  is  a  sight  I  never  expected  to  see. 
The  softness  of  this  conduct  greatly  struck  me. 
I  could  understand  a  packet  of  some  good  thing 
to  eat  between  meals  being  brought,  some  tit-bit 
from  the  home  kitchen  —  but  a  bunch  of  flowers! 
Well,  well;  let  them  go  on  in  their  effeminacy. 
It  is  what  has  always  preceded  a  fall,  and  the  fat 
little  land  will  be  a  luscious  morsel  some  day 
for  muscular  continental  (and  almost  certainly 
German)  jaws. 

We  had  arranged  to  go  straight  that  very  day 
to  the  place  in  Kent  where  the  caravans  and  Frau 
von  Eckthum  and  her  sister  were  waiting  for  us, 
leaving  the  sights  of  London  for  the  end  of  our 
holiday,  by  which  time  our  already  extremely 
good  though  slow  and  slightly  literary  English 
(by  which  I  mean  that  we  talked  more  as  the 
language  is  written  than  other  people  do,  and  that 
we  were  singularly  pure  in  the  matter  of  slang) 
would  have  developed  into  an  up-to-date  agility; 
and  there  being  about  an  hour  and  a  half's  time 
before  the  train  for  Wrotham  started  —  which  it 
conveniently  did  from  the  same  station  we  arrived 
at  —  our  idea  was  to  have  breakfast  first  and  then, 
perhaps,  to  wash.  This  we  accordingly  did  in  the 
station    restaurant,    and    made    the    astonishing 


THE  CARAVANERS  41 

acquaintance  of  British  coffee  and  butter.  Why, 
such  stuff  would  not  be  tolerated  for  a  moment  in 
the  poorest  wayside  inn  in  Germany,  and  I  told 
the  waiter  so  very  plainly;  but  he  only  stared 
with  an  extremely  stupid  face,  and  when  I  had 
done  speaking  said  "Eh?" 

It  was  what  the  porter  had  said  each  time  I 
addressed  him,  and  I  had  already,  therefore,  not 
then  knowing  what  it  was  or  how  it  was  spelt, 
had  about  as  much  of  it  as  I  could  stand. 

"Sir,"  said  I,  endeavoring  to  annihilate  the 
man  with  that  most  powerful  engine  of  destruc- 
tion, a  witticism,  "what  has  the  first  letter  of  the 
alphabet  to  do  with  everything  I  say  ? " 

"Eh?"  said  he. 

"Suppose,  sir,"  said  I,  "I  were  to  confine  my 
remarks  to  you  to  a  strictly  logical  sequence,  atfd 
when  you  say  A  merely  reply  B  —  do  you  imagine 
we  should  ever  come  to  a  satisfactory  under- 
standing ? " 

"Eh?"  said  he. 

"Yet,  sir,"  I  continued,  becoming  angry,  for 
this  was  deliberate  impertinence,  "it  is  certain 
that  one  letter  of  the  alphabet  is  every  bit  as  good 
as  another  for  conversational  purposes." 

"Eh?"  said  he;  and  began  to  cast  glances 
about  him  for  help. 

"This,"  said  I  to  Edelgard,  "is  typical.  It 
is  what  you  must  expect  in  England." 


42  THE  CARAVANERS 

The  head  waiter  here  caught  one  of  the  man's 
glances  and  hurried  up. 

"This  gentleman,"  said  I,  addressing  the  head 
waiter  and  pointing  to  his  colleague,  "is  both 
impertinent  and  a  fool." 

"Yes,  sir.  German,  sir,"  said  the  head 
waiter,  flicking  away  a  crumb. 

Well,  I  gave  neither  of  them  a  tip.  The 
German  was  not  given  one  for  not  at  once  explain- 
ing his  inability  to  get  away  from  alphabetical 
repartee  and  so  shamefully  hiding  the  nationality 
he  ought  to  have  openly  rejoiced  in,  and  the  head 
waiter  because  of  the  following  conversation: 

"Can't  get  'em  to  talk  their  own  tongue,  sir," 
said  he,  when  I  indignantly  inquired  why  he  had 
not.  "None  of  'em  will,  sir.  Hear  'em  putting 
German  gentry  who  don't  know  English  to  the 
greatest  inconvenience.  *Eh?'  this  one'll  say  — 
it's  what  he  picks  up  his  first  week,  sir.  *A  thous- 
and damns,'  say  the  German  gentry,  or  something 
to  that  effect.  *A11  right,'  says  the  waiter  — 
that's  what  he  picks  up  his  second  week  —  and 
makes  it  worse.  Then  the  German  gentry  gets 
really  put  out,  and  I  see  'em  almost  foamin'  at 
the  mouth.     Impatient  set  of  people,  sir 

"I  conclude,"  said  I,  interrupting  him  with  a 
frown,  "that  the  object  of  these  poor  exiled 
fellows  is  to  learn  the  language  as  rapidly  as 
possible  and  get  back  to  their  own  country." 


THE  CARAVANERS  43 

"Or  else  they're  ashamed  of  theirs,  sir,"  said 
he,  scribbHng  down  the  bill.  *' Rolls,  sir?  Eight, 
sir  ?     Thank  you,  sir '* 

"Ashamed?" 

"Quite  right,  sir.  Nasty  cursin'  language. 
Not  fit  for  a  young  man  to  get  into  the  habit  of. 
Most  of  the  words  got  a  swear  about  'em  some- 
where, sir." 

"Perhaps  you  are  not  aware,"  said  I  icily, 
"that  at  this  very  moment  you  are  speaking  to  a 
German  gentleman." 

"  Sorry,  sir.  Didn't  notice  it.  No  offence  meant. 
Two  coffees,  four  boiled  eggs,  eight — you  did 
say  eight  rolls,  sir?  Compliment  really,  you 
know,  sir." 

"Compliment!"  I  exclaimed,  as  he  whisked 
away  with  the  money  to  the  paying  desk;  and 
when  he  came  back  I  pocketed,  with  elaborate 
deliberation,  every  particle  of  change. 

"That  is  how,"  said  I  to  Edelgard  while  he 
watched  me,  "one  should  treat  these  fellows." 

To  which  she,  restored  by  the  hot  coffee  to 
speaking  point,  replied  (rather  stupidly  I  thought), 

"Is  it?" 


CHAPTER  III 

SHE  became,  however,  more  normal  as  the 
morning  wore  on,  and  by  about  eleven 
o'clock  was  taking  an  intelligent  interest  in 
hop-kilns. 

These  objects,  recurring  at  frequent  intervals 
as  one  travels  through  the  county  of  Kent,  are 
striking  and  picturesque  additions  to  the  land- 
scape, and  as  our  guide-book  described  them  very 
fully  I  was  able  to  talk  a  good  deal  about  them. 
Kent  pleased  me  very  well.  It  looked  as  if  there 
were  money  in  it.  Many  thriving  villages,  many 
comfortable  farmhouses,  and  many  hoary  churches 
peeping  slyly  at  us  through  surrounding  groups 
of  timber  so  ancient  that  its  not  yet  having  been 
cut  down  and  sold  is  in  itself  a  testimony  to  the 
prevailing  prosperity.  It  did  not  need  much 
imagination  to  picture  the  comfortable  clergyman 
lurking  in  the  recesses  of  his  snug  parsonage  and 
rubbing  his  well-nourished  hands  at  life.  Well, 
let  him  rub.  Some  day  perhaps  —  and  who  knows 
how  soon  ?  —  we  shall  have  a  decent  Lutheran 
pastor  in  his  black  gown  preaching  the  amended 
faith  in  every  one  of  those  churches. 

44 


THE  CARAVANERS  45 

Shortly,  then,  Kent  is  obviously  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey  and  well-to-do  inhabitants;  and 
when  on  referring  to  our  guide-book  I  found  it 
described  as  the  Garden  of  England  I  was  not  in 
the  least  surprised,  and  neither  was  Edelgard. 
In  this  county,  as  we  knew,  part  at  any  rate 
of  our  gipsying  was  to  take  place,  for  the  caravans 
were  stationed  at  a  village  about  three  miles 
from  Wrotham,  and  we  were  very  well  satisfied  that 
we  were  going  to  examine  it  more  closely,  because 
though  no  one  could  call  the  scenery  majestic 
it  yet  looked  full  of  promise  of  a  comfortable  nature. 
I  observed  for  instance  that  the  roads  seemed 
firm  and  good,  which  was  clearly  important; 
also  that  the  villages  were  so  plentiful  that  there 
would  be  no  fear  of  our  ever  getting  beyond 
the  reach  of  provisions.  Unfortunately,  the 
weather  was  not  true  August  weather,  which 
I  take  it  is  properly  described  by  the  word  bland. 
This  is  not  bland.  The  remains  of  the  violent 
wind  that  had  blown  us  across  from  Flushing  still 
hurried  hither  and  thither,  and  gleams  of  sunshine 
only  too  frequently  gave  place  to  heavy  squalls  of 
rain  and  hail.  It  was  more  like  a  blustering 
October  day  than  one  in  what  is  supposed  to  be 
the  very  height  and  ripeness  of  summer,  and  we 
could  only  both  hope,  as  the  carriage  windows 
banged  and  rattled,  that  our  caravan  would  be 
heavy  enough  to  withstand  the  temptation  to  go 


46  THE  CARAVANERS 

on  by  itself  during  the  night,  urged  on  from 
behind  t)y  the  relentless  forces  of  nature.  Still, 
each  time  the  sun  got  the  better  of  the  inky  clouds 
and  the  Garden  of  England  laughed  at  us  from 
out  of  its  bravery  of  graceful  hop-fields  and 
ripening  corn,  we  could  not  resist  a  feeling  of 
holiday  hopefulness.  Edelgard's  spirits  rose  with 
every  mile,  and  I,  having  readily  forgiven  her 
on  her  asking  me  to  and  acknowledging  she 
had  been  selfish,  was  quite  like  a  boy;  and  when 
we  got  out  of  the  train  at  Wrotham  beneath  a 
blue  sky  and  a  hot  sun  with  the  hail-clouds 
retreating  over  the  hills  and  found  we  would 
have  to  pack  ourselves  and  our  many  packages 
into  a  fly  so  small  that,  as  I  jocularly  remarked 
in  English,  it  was  not  a  fly  at  all  but  an  insect, 
Edelgard  was  so  much  entertained  that  for  several 
minutes  she  was  perfectly  convulsed  with  laughter. 
By  means  of  the  address  neatly  written  in 
Latin  characters  on  an  envelope,  we  had  no 
difficulty  in  getting  the  driver  to  start  off  as 
though  he  knew  where  he  was  going,  but  after 
we  had  been  on  the  way  for  about  half  an  hour 
he  grew  restless,  and  began  to  twist  round  on  his 
box  and  ask  me  unintelligible  questions.  I  sup- 
pose he  talked  and  understood  only  patoisy  for 
I  could  not  in  the  least  make  out  what  he  meant, 
and  when  I  requested  him  to  be  more  clear  I 
could  see  by  his  foolish  face  that  he  was  con- 


THE  CARAVANERS  47 

stitutionally  unable  to  be  it.  A  second  exhibition 
of  the  addressed  envelope,  however,  soothed  him 
for  a  time,  and  we  continued  to  advance  up  and 
down  chalky  roads,  over  the  hedges  on  each  side 
of  which  leapt  the  wind  and  tried  to  blow  our 
hats  off.  The  sun  was  in  our  eyes,  the  dust  was 
in  our  eyes,  and  the  wind  was  in  our  faces. 
Wrotham,  when  we  looked  behind,  had  disap- 
peared. In  front  was  a  chalky  desolation.  We 
could  see  nothing  approaching  a  village,  yet 
Panthers,  the  village  we  were  bound  for,  was 
only  three  miles  from  the  station,  and  not,  observe, 
three  full-blooded  German  miles,  but  the  dwindled 
and  anaemic  English  kind  that  are  typical,  as 
so  much  else  is,  of  the  soul  and  temper  of  the 
nation.  Therefore  we  began  to  be  uneasy,  and 
to  wonder  whether  the  man  were  trustworthy. 
It  occurred  to  me  that  the  chalk  pits  we  con- 
stantly met  would  not  be  bad  places  to  take  us  into 
and  rob  us,  and  I  certainly  could  not  speak  English 
quickly  enough  to  meet  a  situation  demanding 
rapid  dialogue,  nor  are  there  any  directions  in 
my  German-English  Conversational  Guide  as  to 
what  you  are  to  say  when  you  are  being  murdered. 
Still  jocose,  but  as  my  hearers  will  notice,  jocose 
with  a  tinge  of  grimness,  I  imparted  these 
two  linguistic  facts  to  Edelgard,  who  shuddered 
and  suggested  renewed  applications  of  the 
addressed   envelope   to  the  driver.     "Also  it  is 


48  THE  CARAVANERS 

past  dinner  time,"  she  added  anxiously.  "I 
know  because  mein  Magen  knurrt.'* 

By  means  of  repeated  calls  and  my  umbrella 
I  drew  the  driver's  attention  to  us  and  informed 
him  that  I  would  stand  no  further  nonsense.  I 
told  him  this  with  great  distinctness  and  the 
deliberation  forced  upon  me  by  want  of  practice. 
He  pulled  up  to  hear  me  out,  and  then,  merely 
grinning,  drove  on.  "The  youngest  Storch- 
werder  droschke  driver,"  I  cried  indignantly  to 
Edelgard,  "would  die  of  shame  on  his  box  if  he 
did  not  know  every  village,  nay,  every  house 
within  three  miles  of  it  with  the  same  exactitude 
with  which  he  knows  the  inside  of  his  own  pocket." 

Then  I  called  up  to  the  man  once  more,  and 
recollecting  that  nothing  clears  our  Hermann's 
brain  at  home  quicker  than  to  address  him  as 
Esel  I  said,  "Ask,  ass." 

He  looked  down  over  his  shoulder  at  me  with 
an  expression  of  great  surprise. 

"What?"  said  he. 

"What?"  said  I,  confounded  by  this  obtuse- 
ness.     "What?    The  way,  of  course." 

He  pulled  up  once  more  and  turned  right  round 
on  his  box. 

"Look  here "  he  said,  and  paused. 

"Look  where?"  said  I,  very  naturally  sup- 
posing he  had  something  to  show  me. 

"Who  are  you  talkin'  to?"  said  he. 


THE  CARAVANERS  49 

The  question  on  the  face  of  it  was  so  foolish 
that  a  qualm  gripped  my  heart  lest  we  had  to  do 
with  a  madman.  Edelgard  felt  the  same,  for  she 
drew  closer  to  me. 

Luckily  at  that  moment  I  saw  a  passer-by 
some  way  down  the  road,  and  springing  out  of 
the  fly  hastened  to  meet  him  in  spite  of  Edelgard's 
demand  that  I  should  not  leave  her  alone.  On 
reaching  him  I  took  off  my  hat  and  courteously 
asked  him  to  direct  us  to  Panthers,  at  the  same 
time  expressing  my  belief  that  the  flyman  was  not 
normal.  He  listened  with  the  earnest  and  strained 
attention  English  people  gave  to  my  utterances, 
an  attention  caused,  I  believe,  by  the  slightly 
unpractised  pronunciation  combined  with  the 
number  and  variety  of  words  at  my  command, 
and  then  going  up  (quite  fearlessly)  to  the  flyman 
he  pointed  in  the  direction  entirely  opposed  to  the 
one  we  were  following  and  bade  him  go  there. 

"I  won't  take  him  nowhere,''  said  the  flyman 
with  strange  passion;  "he  calls  me  a  ass." 

"It  is  not  your  fault,"  said  I  (very  hand- 
somely, I  thought).  "You  are  what  yqu  were 
made.     You  cannot  help  yourself." 

"I  won't  take  him  nowhere,"  repeated  the  fly- 
man, with,  if  anything,  increased  passion.        .-i 

The  passer-by  looked  from  one  to  another 
with  a  faint  smile. 

"The  expression,"  said  he  to  the  flyman,  "is, 


50  THE  CARAVANERS 

you  see,  merely  a  term  of  recognition  in  the 
gentleman's  country.  You  can't  reasonably  object 
to  that,  you  know.  Drive  on  like  a  sensible 
man,  and  get  your  fare." 

And  lifting  his  hat  to  Edelgard  he  continued 
his  passing  by. 

Well,  we  did  finally  arrive  at  the  appointed 
place  —  indeed,  my  hearers  next  winter  will  know 
all  the  time  that  we  must  have,  or  why  should  I 
be  reading  this  aloud  ?  —  after  being  forced  by  the 
flyman  to  walk  the  last  twenty  minutes  up  a  hill 
which,  he  declared,  his  horse  would  not  otherwise 
be  able  to  ascend.  The  sun  shone  its  hottest 
while  we  slowly  surmounted  this  last  obstacle 
—  a  hard  one  to  encounter  when  it  is  long  past 
dinner-time.  I  am  aware  that  by  English  clocks 
it  was  not  past  it,  but  what  was  that  to  me  ? 
My  watch  showed  that  in  Storchwerder,  the 
place  our  inner  natures  were  used  to,  it  was 
half-past  two,  a  good  hour  beyond  the  time  at 
which  they  are  accustomed  daily  to  be  replenished, 
and  no  arbitrary  theory,  anyhow  no  perilously 
near  approach  to  one,  will  convince  a  man  against 
the  evidence  of  his  senses  that  he  is  not  hungry 
because  a  foreign  clock  says  it  is  not  dinner-time 
when  it  is. 

Panthers,  we  found  on  reaching  the  top  of  the 
hill  and  pausing  to  regain  our  composure,  is  but 
a  house  here  and  a  house  there  scattered  over  a 


THE  CARAVANERS  51 

bleak,  ungenlal  landscape.  It  seemed  an  odd, 
high  up  district  to  use  as  a  terminus  for  caravans, 
and  I  looked  down  the  steep,  narrow  lane  we  had 
just  ascended  and  wondered  how  a  caravan  would 
get  up  it.  Afterward  I  found  that  they  never  do  get 
up  it,  but  arrive  home  from  the  exactly  oppo- 
site direction  along  a  fair  road  which  was  the  one 
any  but  an  imbecile  driver  would  have  brought 
us.  We  reached  our  destination  by,  so  to  speak, 
its  back  door;  and  we  were  still  standing  on  the 
top  of  the  hill  doing  what  is  known  as  getting 
one's  wind,  for  I  am  not  what  would  be  called  an 
ill-covered  man  but  rather,  as  I  jestingly  tell 
Edelgard,  a  walking  compliment  to  her  good 
cooking,  and  she  herself  was  always  of  a  sub- 
stantial build,  not  exaggeratedly  but  agreeably  so 
—  we  were  standing,  I  say,  struggling  for  breath 
when  some  one  came  out  quickly  from  a  neigh- 
bouring gate  and  stopped  with  a  smile  of  greeting 
upon  seeing  us. 

It  was  the  gaunt  sister. 

We  were  greatly  pleased.  Here  we  were,  then, 
safely  arrived,  and  joined  to  at  least  a  por- 
tion of  our  party.  Enthusiastically  we  grasped 
both  her  hands  and  shook  them.  She  laughed  as 
she  returned  our  greetings,  and  I  was  so  much 
pleased  to  find  some  one  I  knew  that  though 
Edelgard  commented  afterward  somewhat 
severely  on  her  dress  because  it  was  so  short  that 


52  THE  CARAVANERS 

it  nowhere  touched  the  ground,  I  noticed  nothing 
except  that  it  seemed  to  be  extremely  neat,  and  as 
for  not  touching  the  ground  Edelgard's  skirt  was 
followed  wherever  she  went  by  a  cloud  of  chalky 
dust  which  was  most  unpleasant. 

Now  why  were  we  so  glad  to  see  this  lady 
again  ?  Why,  indeed,  are  people  ever  glad  to  see 
each  other  again  ?  I  mean  people  who  when 
they  last  saw  each  other  did  not  like  each  other. 
Given  a  sufficient  lapse  of  time,  and  I  have 
observed  that  even  those  who  parted  in  an  atmos- 
phere thick  with  sulphur  of  implied  cursings 
will  smile  and  genially  inquire  how  the  other  does. 
I  have  observed  this,  I  say,  but  I  cannot  explain 
it.  There  had,  it  is  true,  never  been  any  sulphur 
about  our  limited  intercourse  with  the  lady  on 
the  few  occasions  on  which  proper  feeling  pre- 
vailed enough  to  induce  her  to  visit  her  flesh 
and  blood  in  Prussia  —  our  attitude  toward  her 
had  simply  been  one  of  well-bred  chill,  of  chill 
because  no  thinking  German  can,  to  start  with, 
be  anything  but  prejudiced  against  a  person  who 
commits  the  unpatriotism  —  not  to  call  it  by  a 
harsher  name  —  of  selling  her  inestimable  German 
^birthright  for  the  mess  of  an  English  marriage. 
Also  she  was  personally  not  what  Storchwerder 
could  like,  for  she  was  entirely  wanting  in  the 
graces  and  undulations  of  form  which  are  the 
least  one  has  a  right  to  expect  of  a  being  profess- 


THE  CARAVANERS  53 

ing  to  be  a  woman.  Also  she  had  a  way  of  talking 
which  disconcerted  Storchwerder,  and  nobody  likes 
being  disconcerted.  Our  reasons  for  joining  issue 
with  her  in  the  matter  of  caravans  were  first,  that 
we  could  not  help  it,  only  having  discovered  she 
was  coming  when  it  was  too  late;  and  secondly, 
that  it  was  a  cheap  and  convenient  way  of  seeing 
a  new  country.  She  with  her  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  English  was  to  be,  we  privately  told 
each  other,  our  unpaid  courier  —  I  remember 
Edelgard's  amusement  when  the  consolatory 
cleverness  of  this  way  of  looking  at  it  first 
struck  her. 

But  I  am  still  at  a  loss  to  explain  how  it  was 
that  when  she  unexpectedly  appeared  at  the  top 
of  the  hill  at  Panthers  we  both  rushed  at  her 
with  an  effusiveness  that  could  hardly  have  been 
exceeded  if  it  had  been  Edelgard's  grandmother 
Podhaben  who  had  suddenly  stood  before  us,  an 
old  lady  of  ninety-two  of  whom  we  are  both 
extremely  fond,  and  who,  as  is  well  known,  is 
going  to  leave  my  wife  her  money  when  she 
(which  I  trust  sincerely  she  will  not  do  for  a  long 
time  yet)  dies.  I  cannot  explain  it,  I  say,  but 
there  it  is.  Rush  we  did,  and  effusive  we  were, 
and  it  was  reserved  for  a  quieter  moment  to 
remember  with  some  natural  discomposure  that  we 
had  showed  far  more  enthusiasm  than  she  had. 
Not  that  she  was  not  pleasant,  but  there  is  a  gap 


54  THE  CARAVANERS 

between  pleasantness  and  enthusiasm,  and  to  be 
the  one  of  two  persons  who  is  most  pleased  is 
to  put  yourself  in  the  position  of  the  inferior,  of 
the  suppliant,  of  him  who  hopes,  or  is  eager  to 
ingratiate  himself.  Will  it  be  believed  that  when 
later  on  I  said  something  to  this  effect  about 
some  other  matter  in  general  conversation,  the 
gaunt  sister  immediately  cried,  "Oh,  but  that's 
not  generous." 

"What  is  not  generous?"  I  asked  surprised, 
for  it  was  the  first  day  of  the  tour  and  I  was  not 
then  as  much  used  as  I  subsequently  became  to 
her  instant  criticism  of  all  I  said. 

"That  way  of  thinking,"  said  she. 

Edelgard  immediately  bristled  —  (alas,  what 
would  make  her  bristle  now  ?) 

"Otto  is  the  most  generous  of  men,"  she  said. 
"Every  year  on  Sylvester  evening  he  allows  me 
to  invite  six  orphans  to  look  at  the  remains  of 
our  Christmas  tree  and  be  given,  before  they  go 
away,  doughnuts  and  grog." 

"What!  Grog  for  orphans?"  cried  the  gaunt 
sister,  neither  silenced  nor  impressed;  and  there 
ensued  a  warm  discussion  on,  as  she  put  it,  (a)  the 
effect  of  grog  on  orphans,  (b)  the  effect  of  grog 
on  doughnuts,  (c)  the  effect  of  grog  on  combined 
orphans  and  doughnuts. 

But  I  not  only  anticipate,  I  digress. 

Inside  the  gate  through  which  this  lady  had 


THE  CARAVANERS  55 

emerged  stood  the  caravans  and  her  gentle  sister. 
I  was  so  much  pleased  at  seeing  Frau  von  Eckthum 
again  that  at  first  I  did  not  notice  our  future 
homes.  She  was  looking  remarkably  well  and 
was  in  good  spirits,  and,  though  dressed  in  the 
same  way  as  her  sister,  by  adding  to  the  attire  all 
those  graces  so  peculiarly  her  own  the  effect  she 
produced  was  totally  different.  At  least,  I  thought, 
so.  Edelgard  said  she  saw  nothing  to  choose 
between  them. 

After  the  first  greetings  she  half  turned  to  the 
row  of  caravans,  and  with  a  little  motion  of 
the  hand  and  a  pretty  smile  of  proprietary  pride 
said,  "There  they  are." 

There,  indeed,  they  were. 

There  were  three;  all  alike,  sober  brown 
vehicles,  easily  distinguishable,  as  I  was  pleased 
to  notice,  from  common  gipsy  carts.  Clean  cur- 
tains fluttered  at  the  windows,  the  metal  portions 
were  bright,  and  the  names  painted  prettily  on 
them  were  the  Elsa,  the  Ilsa,  and  the  Ailsa. 
It  was  an  impressive  moment,  the  moment  of 
our  first  setting  eyes  upon  them.  Under  those 
frail  roofs  were  we  for  the  next  four  weeks  to 
be  happy,  as  Edelgard  said,  and  healthy  and  wise 
—  **Or,"  I  amended  shrewdly  on  hearing  her  say 
this,  ''vice  versa.'* 

Frau  von  Eckthum,  however,  preferred  Edel- 
gard's  prophecy,  and  gave  her  an  appreciative 


56  THE  CARAVANERS 

look  —  my  hearers  will  remember,  I  am  sure,  how 
agreeably  her  dark  eyelashes  contrast  with  the 
fairness  of  her  hair.  The  gaunt  sister  laughed, 
and  suggested  that  we  should  paint  out  the  names 
already  on  the  caravans  and  substitute  in  large 
letters  Happy,  Healthy,  and  Wise,  but  not  con- 
sidering this  particularly  amusing  I  did  not 
take  any  trouble  to  smile. 

Three  large  horses  that  were  to  draw  them 
and  us  stood  peacefully  side  by  side  in  a  shed 
being  fed  with  oats  by  a  weather-beaten  person 
the  gaunt  sister  introduced  as  old  James.  This 
old  person,  a  most  untidy,  dusty-looking  creature, 
touched  his  cap,  which  is  the  inadequate  English 
way  of  showing  respect  to  superiors  —  as  inade- 
quate at  its  end  of  the  scale  as  the  British  army 
is  at  the  other  —  and  shuffled  off  to  fetch  in  our 
luggage,  and  the  gaunt  sister  suggesting  that  we 
should  climb  up  and  see  the  interior  of  our  new 
home  with  some  difficulty  we  did  so,  there  being 
a  small  ladder  to  help  us  which,  as  a  fact,  did  not 
help  us  either  then  or  later,  no  means  being  dis- 
covered from  beginning  to  end  of  the  tour  by  which 
it  could  be  fixed  firmly  at  a  convenient  angle. 

I  think  I  could  have  climbed  up  better  if 
Frau  von  Eckthum  had  not  been  looking  on; 
besides,  at  that  moment  I  was  less  desirous  of 
inspecting  the  caravans  than  I  was  of  learning 
when,  where,  and  how  we  were  going  to  have 


THE  CARAVANERS  57 

our  delayed  dinner.  Edelgard,  however,  behaved 
like  a  girl  of  sixteen  once  she  had  succeeded  in 
reaching  the  inside  of  the  Elsa,  and  most  incon- 
siderately kept  me  lingering  there  too  while 
she  examined  every  corner  and  cried  with  tiresome 
iteration  that  it  was  wundervoll,  herrlich,  and 
putztg. 

"I  knew  you'd  like  it,"  said  Frau  von  Eckthum 
from  below,  amused  apparently  by  this  kittenish 
conduct. 

"Like  it?"  called  back  Edelgard.  "But  it 
is  delicious  —  so  clean,  so  neat,  so  miniature." 

"May  I  ask  where  we  dine?"  I  inquired, 
endeavouring  to  free  the  skirts  of  my  new  mack- 
intosh from  the  door,  which  had  swung  to  (the 
caravan  not  standing  perfectly  level)  and  jammed 
them  tightly.  I  did  not  need  to  raise  my  voice, 
for  in  a  caravan  even  with  its  door  and  windows 
shut  people  outside  can  hear  what  you  say  just 
as  distinctly  as  people  inside,  unless  you  take 
the  extreme  measure  of  putting  something  thick 
over  your  head  and  whispering.  (Be  it  understood 
I  am  alluding  to  a  caravan  at  rest:  when  in  motion 
you  may  shout  your  secrets,  for  the  noise  of 
crockery  leaping  and  breaking  in  what  we  learned 
—  with  difficulty  —  to  allude  to  as  the  pantry 
will  effectually  drown  them.) 

The  two  ladies  took  no  heed  of  my  question, 
but  coming  up  after  us  —  they  never  could  have 


58  THE  CARAVANERS 

got  in  had  they  been  less  spare  —  filled  the  van 
to  overflowing  while  they  explained  the  various 
arrangements  by  which  our  miseries  on  the  road 
were  to  be  mitigated.  It  was  chiefly  the  gaunt 
sister  who  talked,  she  being  very  nimble  of  tongue, 
but  I  must  say  that  on  this  occasion  Frau  von 
Eckthum  did  not  confine  herself  to  the  attitude 
I  so  much  admired  in  her,  the  ideal  feminine  one 
of  smiling  and  keeping  quiet.  I,  meanwhile, 
tried  to  make  myself  as  small  as  possible,  which 
is  what  persons  in  caravans  try  to  do  all  the  time. 
I  sat  on  a  shiny  yellow  wooden  box  that  ran  down 
one  side  of  our  "room"  with  holes  in  its  lid  and  a 
flap  at  the  end  by  means  of  which  it  could,  if  needed, 
be  lengthened  and  turned  into  a  bed  for  a  third 
sufferer.  (On  reading  this  aloud  I  shall  probably 
substitute  traveller  for  sufferer,  and  some  milder 
word  such  as  discomfort  for  the  word  miseries 
in  the  first  sentence  of  the  paragraph.)  Inside 
the  box  was  a  mattress,  also  extra  sheets,  towels, 
etc.,  so  that,  the  gaunt  sister  said  there  was  nothing 
to  prevent  our  having  house-parties  for  week-ends. 
As  I  do  not  like  such  remarks  even  in  jest  I  took 
care  to  show  by  my  expression  that  I  did  not, 
but  Edelgard,  to  my  surprise,  who  used  always 
to  be  the  first  to  scent  the  vicinity  of  thin  ice, 
laughed  heartily  as  she  continued  her  frantically 
pleased  examination  of  the  van's  contents. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  of  any  man  that  he 


THE  CARAVANERS  59 

shall  sit  in  a  cramped  position  on  a  yellow  box 
at  an  hour  long  past  his  dinner  time  and  take 
an  interest  in  puerilities.  To  Edelgard  it  seemed 
to  be  a  kind  of  a  doll's  house,  and  she,  entirely 
forgetting  the  fact  of  which  I  so  often  reminded  her 
that  she  will  be  thirty  next  birthday,  behaved  in 
much  the  same  way  as  a  child  who  has  just  been 
presented  with  this  expensive  form  of  toy  by 
some  foolish  and  spendthrift  relation.  Frau  von 
Eckthum,  too,  appeared  to  me  to  be  less  intelligent 
than  I  was  accustomed  to  suppose  her.  She 
smiled  at  Edelgard's  delight  as  though  it  pleased 
her,  chatting  in  a  way  I  hardly  recognized  as  she 
drew  my  wife's  attention  to  the  objects  she  had 
not  had  time  to  notice.  Edelgard's  animation 
amazed  me.  She  questioned  and  investigated 
and  admired  without  once  noticing  that  as  I 
sat  on  the  lid  of  the  wooden  box  I  was  obviously 
filled  with  sober  thoughts.  Why,  she  was  so 
much  infatuated  that  she  actually  demanded  at 
intervals  that  I  too  should  join  in  this  exhibition 
of  childishness;  and  it  was  not  until  I  said  very 
pointedly  that  I,  at  least,  was  not  a  little  girl,  that 
she  was  recalled  to  a  proper  sense  of  her  behaviour. 

"Poor  Otto  is  hungry,"  she  said,  pausing 
suddenly  in  her  wild  career  round  the  caravan 
and  glancing  at  my  face. 

"Is  he?  Then  he  must  be  fed,"  said  the 
gaunt  sister,  as  carelessly  and  with  as  little  real 


6o  THE  CARAVANERS 

interest  as  if  there  were  no  particular  hurry. 
"  Look  —  aren't  these  too  sweet  ?  —  each  on  its 
own  Httle  hook  —  six  of  them,  and  their  saucers 
in  a  row  underneath." 

And  so  it  would  have  gone  on  indefinitely 
if  an  extremely  pretty,  nice,  kind  little  lady  had 
not  put  her  head  in  at  the  door  and  asked  with 
a  smile  that  fell  like  oil  on  the  troubled  water 
of  my  brain  whether  we  were  not  dying  for  some- 
thing to  eat. 

Never  did  the  British  absence  of  ceremony 
and  introductions  and  preliminary  phrases  seem 
to  me  excellent  before.  I  sprang  up,  and  immedi- 
ately knocked  my  elbow  so  hard  against  a  brass 
bracket  holding  a  candle  and  hanging  on  a  hook 
in  the  wall  that  I  was  unable  altogether  to  sup- 
press an  exclamation  of  pain.  Remembering, 
however,  what  is  due  to  society  I  very  skilfully 
converted  it  into  a  rather  precipitate  and  agonized 
answer  to  the  little  lady's  question,  and  she,  with  a 
charming  hospitality,  pressing  me  to  come  into  her 
adjoining  garden  and  have  some  food,  I  accepted 
with  alacrity,  only  regretting  that  I  was  unable, 
from  the  circumstance  of  her  going  first,  to  help 
her  down  the  ladder.  (As  a  matter  of  fact  she  had 
in  the  end  to  help  me,  because  the  door  slammed 
behind  me  and  again  imprisoned  the  skirts  of 
my  mackintosh.) 

Edelgard,  absorbed  in  delighted  contemplation 


THE  CARAVANERS  6i 

of  a  corner  beneath  the  so-called  pantry  full  of 
brooms  and  dusters  also  hanging  in  rows  on 
hooks,  only  shook  her  head  when  I  inquired  if 
she  would  not  come  too;  so  leaving  her  to  her 
ecstasies  I  went  off  with  my  new  protector,  who 
asked  me  why  I  wore  a  mackintosh  when  there 
was  not  a  cloud  in  the  sky.  I  avoided  giving  a 
direct  answer  by  retorting  playfully  (though 
wholly  politely),  "Why  not?"  —  and  indeed  my 
reasons,  connected  with  creases  and  other  ruin 
attendant  on  confinement  in  a  hold-all,  were  of 
too  domestic  and  private  a  nature  to  be  explained 
to  a  stranger  so  charming.  But  my  counter- 
question  luckily  amused  her,  and  she  laughed  as 
she  opened  a  small  gate  in  the  wall  and  led  me 
into  her  garden. 

Here  I  was  entertained  with  the  greatest  hos- 
pitality by  herself  and  her  husband.  The  fleet 
of  caravans  which  yearly  pervades  that  part  of 
England  is  stationed  when  not  in  action  on  their 
premises.  Hence  departs  the  joyful  caravaner, 
accompanied  by  kind  wishes;  hither  he  returns 
sobered,  and  is  received  with  balm  and  bandages  — 
at  least,  I  am  sure  he  would  find  them  and  every 
other  kind  form  of  solace  in  the  little  garden  on 
the  hill.  I  spent  a  very  pleasant  and  reviving 
half-hour  in  a  sheltered  corner  of  it,  enjoying  my 
al  fresco  meal  and  acquiring  much  information. 
To  my  question  as  to  whether  my  entertainers 


62  THE  CARAVANERS 

were  to  be  of  our  party  they  replied,  to  my  dis- 
appointment, that  they  were  not.  Their  functions 
were  restricted  to  this  seeing  that  we  started 
happy,  and  being  prompt  and  helpful  when  we 
came  back.  From  them  I  learned  that  our  party 
was  to  consist,  besides  ourselves  and  Frau  von 
Eckthum  and  that  sister  whom  I  have  hitherto 
distinguished  by  the  adjective  gaunt,  putting  oflf 
the  necessity  as  long  as  possible  of  alluding  to  her 
by  name,  she  having,  as  my  hearers  perhaps 
remember,  married  a  person  with  the  unpronounce- 
able one  if  you  see  it  written  and  the  unspellable 
one  if  you  hear  it  said  of  Menzies-Legh  —  the 
party  was  to  consist,  I  say,  besides  these  four,  of 
Menzies-Legh's  niece  and  one  of  her  friends; 
of  Menzies-Legh  himself;  and  of  two  young 
men  about  whom  no  precise  information  was 
obtainable. 

"  But  how  ?  But  where  ? "  said  I,  remem- 
bering the  limited  accommodations  of  the  three 
caravans. 

My  host  reassured  me  by  explaining  that  the  two 
young  men  would  inhabit  a  tent  by  night  which, 
by  day,  would  be  carried  in  one  of  the  caravans. 

"In  which  one?"    I  asked  anxiously. 

"You  must  settle  that  among  yourselves," 
said  he  smiling. 

"That's  what  one  does  all  day  long  caravan- 
ing,"  said  my  hostess,  handing  me  a  cup  of  coffee. 


THE  CARAVANERS  63 

"What  does  one  do?"  I  asked,  eager  for 
information. 

**  Settle  things  among  oneselves,"  said  she. 
"Only  generally  one  doesn't." 

I  put  it  down  to  my  want  of  practice  in  the 
more  idiomatic  involutions  of  the  language  that  I 
did  not  quite  follow  her  meaning;  but  as  one  of 
my  principles  is  never  to  let  people  know  that  I 
have  not  understood  them  I  merely  bowed  slightly 
and,  taking  out  my  note-book,  remarked  that  if 
that  were  so  I  would  permit  myself  to  make  a  list 
of  our  party  in  order  to  keep  its  various  members 
more  distinct  in  my  mind. 

The  following  is  the  way  in  which  we  were  to 
be  divided: 

1.  A  caravan  (the  Elsa),  containing  the  Baron 
and  Baroness  von  Ottringel,  of  Storchwerder 
in  Prussia. 

2.  Another  caravan  (the  Ailsa),  containing 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  of  various  addresses, 
they  being  ridiculously  and  superfluously  rich. 

3.  Another  caravan  (the  Ilsa),  containing  Frau 
von  Eckthum,  the  Menzies-Legh  niece,  and  her 
(as  I  gathered,  school)  friend.  In  this  caravan 
the  yellow  box  was  to  be  used. 

4.  One  tent,  containing  two  young  men,  name 
and  status  unknown. 

The  ill-dressed  person,  old  James,  was  coming 
too,  but  would  sleep  each  night  with  the  horses. 


64  THE  CARAVANERS 

they  being  under  his  special  care;  and  all  of  the 
party  (except  ourselves  and  Frau  von  Eckthum 
and  her  sister  who  had  already,  as  I  need  not  say, 
done  so)  were  yet  to  assemble.  They  were 
expected  every  moment,  and  had  been  expected 
all  day.  If  they  did  not  come"  soon  our  first 
day*s  march,  opined  my  host,  would  not  see  us 
camping  further  away  than  the  end  of  the  road, 
for  it  was  already  past  four  o'clock.  This 
reminded  me  that  my  luggage  ought  to  be  unpacked 
and  stowed  away,  and  I  accordingly  begged 
to  be  excused  that  I  might  go  and  superintend 
the  operation,  for  I  have  long  ago  observed  that 
when  the  controlling  eye  of  the  chief  is  somewhere 
else  things  are  very  apt  to  go  irremediably  wrong. 
"Against  Stupidity,"  says  some  great  German  — 
it  must  have  been  Goethe,  and  if  it  was  not,  then 
no  doubt  it  was  Schiller,  they  having,  I  imagine, 
between  them  said  everything  there  is  to  be  said 
—  "against  stupidity  the  very  gods  struggle  in 
vain. "  And  I  beg  that  this  may  not  be  taken  as 
a  reflection  on  my  dear  wife,  but  rather  as  an 
inference  of  general  applicability.  In  any  case 
the  recollection  of  it  sent  me  off  with  a  swinging 
stride  to  the  caravans. 


CHAPTER  IV 

DARKNESS  had,  if  not  actually  gathered, 
certainly  approached  within  measurable 
distance,  substantially  aided  by  lowering  storm- 
clouds,  by  the  time  we  were  ready  to  start.  Not 
that  we  were,  as  a  fact,  ever  ready  to  start,  because 
the  two  young  girls  of  the  party,  with  truly  British 
inconsideration  for  others,  had  chosen  to  do  that 
which  Menzies-Legh  in  fantastic  idiom  described 
as  not  turning  up.  I  heard  him  say  it  several 
times  before  I  was  able,  by  carefully  comparing 
it  with  the  context,  to  discover  his  meaning.  The 
moment  I  discovered  it  I  of  course  saw  its  truth: 
turned  up  they  certainly  had  not,  and  though 
too  well-bred  to  say  it  aloud  I  privately  applauded 
him  every  time  he  remarked,  with  an  accumu- 
lating emphasis,  "Bother  those  girls." 

For  the  first  two  hours  nobody  had  time  to 
bother  them,  and  to  get  some  notion  of  the  busy 
scene  the  yard  presented  my  hearers  must  imagine 
a  bivouac  during  our  manoeuvres  in  which  the 
soldiers  shall  all  be  recruits  just  joined  and  where 
there  shall  be  no  superior  to  direct  them.  I 
know  to  imagine  this  requires  imagination,  but 

6s 


66  THE  CARAVANERS 

only  he  who  does  it  will  be  able  to  form  an  approx- 
imately correct  notion  of  what  the  yard  looked 
like  and  sounded  like  while  the  whole  party  (except 
the  two  girls  who  were  not  there)  did  their 
unpacking. 

It  will  be  obvious  on  a  moment's  reflection  that 
portmanteaus,  etc.,  had  to  be  opened  on  the 
bare  earth  in  the  midst,  so  to  speak,  of  untamed 
nature,  with  threatening  clouds  driving  over  them, 
and  rude  winds  seizing  what  they  could  of  their 
contents  and  wantoning  with  them  about  the 
yard.  It  will  be  equally  obvious  that  these  con- 
tents had  to  be  handed  up  one  by  one  by  the 
person  below  to  the  person  in  the  caravan  who 
was  putting  them  away  and  the  person  below 
having  less  to  do  would  be  quicker  in  his  move- 
ments, while  the  person  above  having  more  to  do 
would  be  —  I  suppose  naturally  but  I  think  with 
a  little  self-control  it  ought  not  to  be  so  — 
quicker  in  her  temper;  and  so  she  was,  and  quite 
unjustifiably,  because  though  she  might  have 
the  double  work  of  sorting  and  putting  away  I, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  to  stoop  so  continuously 
that  I  was  very  shortly  in  a  condition  of  actual 
physical  distress.  The  young  men,  who  might 
have  helped  and  at  first  did  help  Frau  von  Eck- 
thum  (though  I  consider  they  were  on  more  than 
delicate  ground  while  they  did  it)  were  prevented 
being  of  use  because  one   had   brought  a   bull 


THE  CARAVANERS  67 

terrier,  a  most  dangerous  looking  beast,  and  the 
other  —  probably  out  of  compliment  to  us  — 
a  white  Pomeranian;  and  the  bull  terrier,  without 
the  least  warning  or  preliminary  growl  such  as 
our  decent  German  dogs  emit  before  proceeding 
to  action,  suddenly  fixed  his  teeth  into  the  Pom- 
eranian and  left  them  there.  The  howls  of  the 
Pomeranian  may  be  imagined.  The  bull  terrier, 
on  the  other  hand,  said  nothing  at  all.  At  once 
the  hubbub  in  the  yard  was  increased  tenfold. 
No  efforts  of  its  master  could  make  the  bull  terrier 
let  go.  Menzies-Legh  called  for  pepper,  and  the 
women-folk  ransacked  the  larders  in  the  rear  of 
the  vans,  but  though  there  were  cruets  there 
was  no  pepper.  At  length  the  little  lady  of  the 
garden,  whose  special  gift  it  seemed  to  appear 
at  the  right  moment,  judging  no  doubt  that 
the  sounds  in  the  yard  could  not  altogether 
be  explained  by  caravaners  unpacking,  came 
out  with  a  pot  full,  and  throwing  it  into  the 
bull  terrier's  face  he  was  obliged  to  let  go  in 
order  to  sneeze. 

During  the  rest  of  the  afternoon  the  young 
men  could  help  no  one  because  they  were  engaged 
in  the  care  of  their  dogs,  the  owner  of  the  Pome- 
ranian attending  to  its  wounds  and  the  owner  of 
the  bull  terrier  preventing  a  repetition  of  its 
conduct.  And  Menzies-Legh  came  up  to  me 
and   said   in   his   singularly   trailing   melancholy 


68  THE  CARAVANERS 

voice,  did  I  not  think  they  were  jolly  dogs  and 
going  to  be  a  great  comfort  to  us. 

"Oh,  quite,"  said  I,  unable  exactly  to  under- 
stand what  he  meant. 

Still  less  was  I  able  to  understand  the  attitude 
of  the  dogs'  masters  toward  each  other.  Not 
thus  would  our  fiery  German  youth  have  behaved. 
Undoubtedly  in  a  similar  situation  they  would 
have  come  to  blows,  or  in  any  case  to  the  class 
of  words  that  can  only  be  honourably  wiped  out 
in  the  blood  of  a  duel.  But  these  lymphatic 
Englishmen,  both  of  them  straggly,  pale  persons 
in  clothes  so  shabby  and  so  much  too  big  that  I 
was  at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  they  could  appear  in 
them  before  ladies,  hung  on  each  to  his  dog  in 
perfect  silence,  and  when  it  was  over  and  the 
aggressor's  owner  said  he  was  sorry,  the  Pomer- 
anian's owner,  instead  of  confronting  him  with 
the  fury  of  a  man  who  has  been  wronged  and 
owes  it  to  his  virility  not  to  endure  it,  actually 
tried  to  pretend  that  somehow,  by  some  means, 
it  was  all  his  dog's  fault  or  his  own  in  allowing 
him  to  be  near  the  other,  and  therefore  it  was  he 
who,  in  their  jargon,  was  "frightfully  sorry." 
Such  is  the  softness  of  this  much  too  rich  and  far 
too  comfortable  nation.  Merely  to  see  it  made 
me  blush  to  be  a  man;  but  I  became  calm  again 
on  recollecting  that  the  variety  of  man  I  happened 
to  be  was,  under  God,  a  German.     And  I  dis- 


THE  CARAVANERS  69 

covered  later  that  neither  of  them  ever  touch  an 
honest  mug  of  beer,  but  drink  instead  —  will  it 
be  believed  ?  —  water. 

Now  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  at  this  point 
of  my  holiday  I  had  already  ceased  to  enjoy  it. 
On  the  contrary,  I  was  enjoying  myself  in  my 
quiet  way  very  much.  Not  only  does  the  study 
of  character  greatly  interest  me,  but  I  am  blest  with 
a  sense  of  humour  united  to  that  toughness  of 
disposition  which  stops  a  man  from  saying,  how- 
ever much  he  may  want  to,  die.  Therefore  I 
bore  the  unpacking  and  the  arranging  and  the 
advice  I  got  from  everybody  and  the  questions  I 
was  asked  by  everybody  and  the  calls  here  and 
the  calls  there  and  the  wind  that  did  not  cease 
a  moment  and  the  rain  that  pelted  down  at  inter- 
vals, without  a  murmur.  I  had  paid  for  my 
holiday,  and  I  meant  to  enjoy  it.  But  it  did  seem 
to  me  a  strange  way  of  taking  pleasure  for  wealthy 
people  like  the  Menzies-Leghs,  who  could  have 
gone  to  the  best  hotel  in  the  gayest  resort,  and  who 
instead  were  bent  into  their  portmanteaus  as 
double  as  I  was,  doing  work  that  their  footmen 
would  have  scorned;  and  when  during  an  extra 
sharp  squall  we  had  hastily  shut  our  portmanteaus 
and  all  scrambled  into  our  respective  —  I  was 
going  to  say  kennels,  but  I  will  be  just  and  say 
caravans,  I  expressed  this  surprise  to  Edelgard, 
she  said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  had  told  her  while 


70  '     THE  CARAVANERS 

I  was  at  luncheon  that  both  she  and  her  sister 
desired  for  a  time  to  remove  themselves  as  far 
as  possible  from  what  she  called  the  ministrations 
of  menials.  They  wished,  said  Edelgard,  quoting 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh*s  words,  to  endeavour  to 
fulfil  the  Scriptures  and  work  with  their  hands 
the  things  which  are  good;  and  Edelgard,  who 
was  much  amused  by  the  reference  to  the' Scrip- 
tures, agreed  with  me,  who  was  also  greatly 
diverted,  that  it  is  a  game,  this  working  with  one's 
hands,  that  only  seems  desirable  to  those  so  much 
surfeited  with  all  that  is  worth  having  that  they 
cease  to  be  able  to  distinguish  its  value,  and  that 
it  would  be  interesting  to  watch  how  long  the  two 
pampered  ladies  enjoyed  playing  it.  Edelgard 
of  course  had  no  fears  for  herself,  for  she  is  a  most 
admirably  trained  hausfrau,  and  the  keeping 
of  our  tiny  wheeled  house  in  order  would  be  easy 
enough  after  the  keeping  in  order  of  our  flat  at 
home  and  the  constant  supervision,  amounting 
on  washing  days  to  goading,  of  Clothilde,  But 
the  two  sisters  had  not  had  the  advantage  of  a 
husband  who  kept  them  to  their  work  from  the 
beginning,  and  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  was  a  ne'er-do- 
well,  spoiled,  and  encouraged  to  do  nothing 
whatever  except,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  practise 
how  best  to  pretend  she  was  clever. 

By  six  we  were  ready  to  start.     From  six  to 
seven  we  bothered  the  girls.    At  seven  serious 


THE  CARAVANERS  71 

consultations  commenced  as  to  what  had  better 
be  done.  Start  we  must,  for  kind  though  our 
host  and  hostess  were  I  do  not  think  they  wanted 
us  to  camp  in  their  front  yard;  if  they  did  they 
did  not  say  so,  and  it  became  every  moment  more 
apparent  that  a  stormy  night  was  drawing  nearer 
across  the  hills.  Menzies-Legh,  with  growing 
uneasiness,  asked  his  wife  I  suppose  a  dozen  times 
what  on  earth,  as  he  put  it,  had  become  of  the 
girls;  whether  she  thought  he  had  better  go  and 
look  for  them;  whether  she  thought  they  had 
had  an  accident;  whether  she  thought  they  had. 
lost  thq  address  or  themselves;  to  all  of  which 
she  answered  that  she  thought  nothing  except 
that  they  were  naughty  girls  who  would  be  suitably 
scolded  when  they  did  come. 

The  little  lady  of  the  garden  came  on  the  scene 
at  this  juncture  with  her  usual  happy  tact,  and 
suggested  that  it  being  late  and  we  being  new  at 
it  and  therefore  no  doubt  going  to  take  longer 
arranging  our  camp  this  first  night  than  we  after- 
ward would,  we  should  start  along  the  road  to 
a  bit  of  common  about  half  a  mile  further  on 
and  there,  with  no  attempt  at  anything  like  a 
march,  settle  for  the  night.  We  would  then,  she 
pointed  out,  either  meet  the  girls  or,  if  they  came 
another  way,  she  would  send  them  round  to  us. 

Such  sensible  suggestions  could  only,  as  the 
English  say,  be  jumped  at.     In  a  moment  all  was 


72  THE  CARAVANERS 

bustle.  We  had  been  sitting  disconsolately  each 
on  his  ladder  arguing  (not  without  touches  of  what 
threatened  to  become  recrimination),  and  we 
now  briskly  put  them  away  and  prepared  to  be 
off.  With  some  difficulty  the  horses,  who  did 
not  wish  to  go,  were  put  in,  the  dogs  were 
chained  behind  separate  vans,  the  ladders  slung 
underneath  (this  was  no  easy  job,  but  one  of  the 
straggly  young  men  came  to  our  assistance  just 
as  Edelgard  was  about  to  get  under  our  caravan 
and  find  out  how  to  do  it,  and  showed  such 
unexpected  skill  that  I  put  him  down  as  being 
probably  in  the  bolt  and  screw  trade),  adieux  and 
appropriate  speeches  were  made  to  our  kind 
entertainer,  and  off  we  went. 

First  marched  old  James,  leading  the  Ilsa*s 
horse,  with  Menzies-Legh  beside  him,  and  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  her  head  wrapped  up  very  curiously 
in  yards  and  yards  of  some  transparent  fluttering 
stuff  of  a  most  unpractically  feminine  nature  and 
her  hand  grasping  a  walking  stick  of  a  most 
aggressively  masculine  one,  marched  behind,  giv- 
ing me  who  followed  (to  my  surprise  I  found  it 
was  expected  of  me  that  fai  from  sitting  as  I  had 
intended  to  do  inside  our  caravan  I  should  trudge 
along  leading  our  horse)  much  unneeded  and 
unasked-for  advice.  Her  absurd  head  arrange- 
ment, which  I  afterward  learned  was  called  a 
motor  veil,  prevented  my  seeing  anything  except 


THE  CARAVANERS  73 

egregiously  long  eyelashes  and  the  tip  of  an 
inquiring  and  strange  to  say  not  over  aristocratic 
nose  —  Edelgard's,  true  to  its  many  ancestors,  is 
purest  hook.  Taller  and  gaunter  than  ever  in 
her  straight  up  and  down  sort  of  costume,  she 
stalked  beside  me  her  head  on  a  level  with  mine 
(and  I  am  by  no  means  a  short  man),  telling 
me  what  I  ought  to  do  and  what  I  ought  not  to 
do  in  the  matter  of  leading  a  horse;  and  when 
she  had  done  that  ad  nauseam,  ad  lihituniy  and 
ad  infinitum  (I  believe  I  have  forgotten  nothing 
at  all  of  my  classics)  she  turned  to  my  peaceful 
wife  sitting  on  the  Elsa's  platform  and  announced 
that  if  she  stayed  up  there  she  would  probably 
soon  be  sorry. 

In  another  moment  Edelgard  was  sorry,  for 
unfortunately  my  horse  had  had  either  too  many 
oats  or  not  enough  exercise,  and  the  instant  the 
first  van  had  lumbered  through  the  gate  and  out 
of  sight  round  the  corner  to  the  left  he  made  a 
sudden  and  terrifying  attempt  to  follow  it  at  a 
gallop. 

Those  who  know  caravans  know  that  they 
must  never  gallop:  not,  that  is,  if  the  contents 
are  to  remain  unbroken  and  the  occupants 
unbruised.  They  also  know  that  no  gate  is  more 
than  exactly  wide  enough  to  admit  of  their  passing 
through  it,  and  that  unless  the  passing  through 


74  THE  CARAVANERS 

is  calculated  and  carried  out  to  a  nicety  the 
caravan  that  emerges  will  not  be  the  caravan  that 
went  in.  Providence  that  first  evening  was  on 
my  side,  for  I  never  got  through  any  subsequent 
gate  with  an  equal  neatness.  My  heart  had 
barely  time  to  leap  into  my  mouth  before  we 
were  through  and  out  in  the  road,  and  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  catching  hold  of  the  bridle, 
was  able  to  prevent  the  beast's  doing  what  was 
clearly  in  his  eye,  turn  round  to  the  left  after  his 
mate  with  a  sharpness  that  would  have  snapped 
the  Elsa  in  two. 

Edelgard,  rather  pale,  scrambled  down.  The 
sight  of  our  caravan  heaving  over  inequalities  or 
lurching  as  it  was  turned  round  was  a  sight  I 
never  learned  to  look  at  without  a  tightened 
feeling  about  the  throat.  Anxiously  I  asked 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  when  the  horse,  having 
reached  the  rear  of  the  Ilsa,  had  settled  down 
again,  what  would  happen  if  I  did  not  get  through 
the  next  gate  with  an  equal  skill. 

"Everything  may  happen,"  said  she,  "from 
the  scraping  off  of  the  varnish  to  the  scraping  off 
of  a  wheel. 

"But  this  is  terrible,"  I  cried.  "What  would 
we  do  with  one  wheel  too  few  ? " 

"We  couldn't  do  anything  till  there  was  a 
new  one."  ! 

"And  who. would  pay " 


THE  CARAVANERS  75 

I  stopped.  Aspects  of  the  tour  were  revealed 
to  me  which  had  not  till  then  been  illuminated. 
"It  depends,"  said  she,  answering  my  unfinished 
question,  **  whose  wheel  it  was.'* 

"And  suppose  my  dear  wife,"  I  inquired  after 
a  pause  during  which  many  thoughts  surged 
within  me,  "should  have  the  misfortune  to  break, 
say,  a  cup  ?" 

"A  new  cup  would  have  to  be  provided." 

"And  would  I  —  but  suppose  cups  are  broken 
by  circumstances  over  which  I  have  no  control?" 

She  snatched  quickly  at  the  bridle.  "Is  that 
the  horse  ? "  she  asked. 

"Is  what  the  horse?" 

"The  circumstances.  If  I  hadn't  caught  him 
then  he'd  have  had  your  caravan  in  the  ditch." 

"My  dear  lady,"  I  cried,  nettled,  "he  would 
have  done  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  was  paying 
attention.  As  an  officer  you  must  admit  that 
my  ignorance  of  horses  cannot  be  really  as 
extensive  as  you  are  pleased  to  pretend  you 
think." 

"  Dear  Baron,  when  does  a  woman  ever  admit  ? " 

A  shout  from  behind  drowned  the  answer 
that  would,  I  was  sure,  have  silenced  her,  for  I 
had  not  then  discovered  that  no  answer  ever  did. 
It  was  from  one  of  the  pale  young  men,  who  was 
making  signs  to  us  from  the  rear. 

"Run  back  and   see  what  he   wants,"   com- 


76  THE  CARAVANERS 

manded  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  marching  on  at 
my  horse's  head  with  Edelgard,  slightly  out  of 
breath,  beside  her. 

I  found  that  our  larder  had  come  undone  and 
was  shedding  our  ox-tongue,  which  we  had  hoped 
to  keep  private,  on  to  the  road  in  front  of  the 
eyes  of  Frau  von  Eckthum  and  the  two  young 
men.  This  was  owing  to  Edelgard*s  careless- 
ness, and  I  was  extremely  displeased  with  her. 
At  the  back  of  each  van  were  two  lockers,  one  con- 
taining an  oil  stove  and  saucepans  and  the  other, 
provided  with  air-holes,  was  the  larder  in  which 
our  provisions  were  to  be  kept.  Both  had  doors 
consisting  of  flaps  that  opened  outward  and 
downward  and  were  fastened  by  a  padlock. 
With  gross  carelessness  Edelgard,  after  putting 
in  the  tongue,  had  merely  shut  the  larder  door 
without  padlocking  it,  and  when  a  sufllicient 
number  of  jolts  had  occurred  the  flap  fell  open 
and  the  tongue  fell  out.  It  was  being  followed 
by  some  private  biscuits  we  had  brought. 

Naturally  I  was  upset.  Every  time  Edelgard 
is  neglectful  or  forgetful  she  recedes  about  a  year 
in  my  esteem.  It  takes  her  a  year  of  attentive- 
ness  and  diligence  to  regain  that  point  in  my 
aff^ection  on  which  she  previously  stood.  She 
knew  this,  and  used  to  be  careful  to  try  to  keep 
proper  pace,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  with  my  love, 
and  at  the  date  at  which  I  have  arrived  in  the 


THE  CARAVANERS  -]-] 

narrative  had  not  yet  given  up  trying,  so  that 
when  by  shouting  I  had  made  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  understand  that  the  Elsa  was  to  be  stopped 
Edelgard  hurried  back  to  inquire  what  was  wrong, 
and  was  properly  distressed  when  she  saw  the 
result  of  her  negligence.  Well,  repentance  may 
be  a  good  thing,  but  our  ox-tongue  was  gone  for- 
ever; before  he  could  be  stopped  the  Ailsa's 
horse,  following  close  behind,  had  placed  his  huge 
hoof  on  it  and  it  became  pulp. 

"How  sad,''  said  Frau  von  Eckthum  gazing 
upon  this  ruin.  "But  so  nice  of  you,  dear  Baron- 
ess, to  think  of  it.  It  might  just  have  saved  us 
all  from  starvation." 

"Well,  it  can't  now,"  said  one  of  the  young 
men ;  and  he  took  it  on  the  point  of  his  stick  and 
cast  it  into  the  ditch. 

Edelgard  began  silently  to  pick  up  the  scattered 
biscuits.  Immediately  both  the  young  men 
darted  forward  to  do  it  for  her  with  a  sudden 
awakening  to  energy  that  seemed  very  odd  in 
persons  who  slouched  along  with  their  hands  in 
their  pockets.  It  made  me  wonder  whether 
perhaps  they  thought  her  younger  than  she  was. 
As  we  resumed  our  march,  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  this  must  be  so,  for  such  activity  of 
assistance  would  otherwise  be  unnatural,  and  I 
resolved  to  take  the  earliest  opportunity  of  bring- 
ing the  conversation  round  to  birthdays  and  then 


78  THE  CARAVANERS 

carelessly  mentioning  that  my  wife's  next  one 
would  be  her  thirtieth.  In  this  department  of 
all  others  I  am  not  the  man  to  allow  buds  to 
go  unnipped. 

We  had  not  been  travelling  ten  minutes  before 
we  came  to  a  stony  turning  up  to  the  right  which 
old  James,  who  was  a  native  of  those  parts,  said 
was  the  entrance  to  the  common.  It  seemed 
strange  to  camp  almost  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  our  starting-place,  but  the  rain  was  at  that 
moment  pelting  down  on  our  defenceless  heads, 
and  people  hurrying  to  their  snug  homes  stopped 
in  spite  of  it  to  look  at  us  with  a  wondering  pity, 
so  that  we  all  wished  to  get  off  the  road  as  soon 
as  possible  and  into  the  privacy  of  furze  bushes. 
The  lane  was  in  no  sense  a  hill:  it  was  a  gentle 
incHne,  almost  immediately  reaching  flat  ground; 
but  it  was  soft  and  stony,  and  the  Ilsa's  horse, 
after  dragging  his  caravan  for  a  few  yards  up 
it,  could  get  no  farther,  and  when  Menzies-Legh 
put  the  roller  behind  the  back  wheel  to  prevent 
the  Ilsa's  returning  thither  from  whence  it  had 
just  come  the  chain  of  the  roller  snapped,  the 
roller,  released,  rolled  away,  and  the  Ilsa  began 
to  move  backward  on  top  of  the  Elsa,  which 
in  its  turn  began  to  move  backward  on  top 
of  the  Ailsa,  which  in  its  turn  began  to  move 
backward  across  the  road  in  the  direction  of 
the  ditch. 


THE  CARAVANERS  79 

It  was  an  unnerving  spectacle;  for  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  however  small  the  caravans 
seemed  when  you  were  inside  them  when  you 
were  outside  they  looked  like  mighty  monsters, 
towering  above  hedges,  filling  up  all  but  wide 
roads,  and  striking  awe  into  the  hearts  even  of 
motorists,  who  got  out  of  their  way  with  the  eager 
politeness  otherwise  rude  persons  display  when 
confronted  by  yet  greater  powers  of  being  dis- 
agreeable. 

Menzies-Legh  and  the  two  young  men,  acting 
on  some  shouted  directions  from  old  James,  rushed 
at  the  stones  lying  about  and  selecting  the  biggest 
placed  them,  I  must  say  with  commendable  prompt- 
ness, behind  the  Ilsa's  wheels,  and  what  prom- 
ised to  be  an  appalling  catastrophe  was  averted. 
I,  who  was  reassuring  Edelgard,  was  not  able  to 
help.  She  had  asked  me  with  ill-concealed  anxiety 
whether  I  thought  the  caravans  would  begin  to 
go  backward  in  the  night  when  we  were  inside 
them,  and  I  was  doing  my  best  to  calm  her,  only 
of  course  I  had  to  point  out  that  it  was  extremely 
windy;  and  quite  a  dirty  and  undesirable  workman 
trudging  by  at  that  moment  with  his  bag  of  tools 
on  his  back  and  his  face  set  homeward, 
she  stared  after  him  and  said:  "Otto,  how  nice 
to  be  going  to  a  house." 

"Come,  come,"  said  I  rallying  her  —  but 
undoubtedly  the  weather  was  depressing. 


8o  THE  CARAVANERS 

We  had  to  trace  up  the  lane  to  the  common. 
This  was  the  first  time  that  ominous  verb  fell 
upon  my  ear;  how  often  it  was  destined  to  do  so 
will  be  readily  imagined  by  those  of  my  country- 
men who  have  ever  visited  the  English  county  of 
Sussex  supposing,  which  I  doubt,  that  such  there 
are.  Its  meaning  is  that  you  are  delayed  for  any 
length  of  time  from  an  hour  upward  at  the  bottom 
of  each  hill  while  the  united  horses  drag  one 
caravan  after  another  to  the  top.  On  this  first 
occasion  the  tracing  chains  we  had  brought  with 
us  behaved  in  the  same  way  the  roller  chain  had 
and  immediately  snapped,  and  Menzies-Legh, 
moved  to  anger,  inquired  severely  of  old  James 
how  it  was  that  everything  we  touched  broke; 
but  he,  being  innocent,  was  not  very  voluble,  and 
Menzies-Legh  soon  left  him  alone.  Happily  we 
had  another  pair  of  chains  with  us.  All  this, 
however,  meant  great  delays,  and  the  rain  had 
almost  left  off,  and  the  sun  was  setting  in  a  gloomy 
bank  of  leaden  clouds  across  a  comfortless  dis- 
tance and  sending  forth  its  last  pale  beams  through 
thinning  raindrops,  by  the  time  the  first  caravan 
safely  reached  the  common. 

If  any  of  you  should  by  any  chance,  however 
remote,  visit  Panthers,  pray  go  to  Grib's  (or 
Grip's  —  in  spite  of  repeated  inquiries  I  at  no 
time  discovered  which  it  was)  Common,  and 
picture  to  yourselves  our  first  night  in  that  bleak 


C3> 


THE  CARAVANERS  8i 

refuge.  For  it  was  a  refuge  —  the  alternative 
being  to  march  along  blindly  till  the  next  morning, 
which  was,  "of  course,  equivalent  to  not  being  an 
alternative  at  all  —  but  how  bleak  a  one!  Gray 
shadows  were  descending  on  it,  cold  winds  were 
whirling  round  it,  the  grass  was,  naturally,  drip- 
ping, and  scattered  in  and  out  among  the  furze 
bushes  were  the  empty  sardine  and  other  tins  of 
happier  sojourners.  These  last  objects  were 
explained  by  the  presence  of  a  hop-field  skirting 
one  side  of  the  common,  a  hop-field  luckily  not 
yet  in  that  state  which  attracts  hop-pickers,  or  the 
common  would  hardly  have  been  a  place  to  which 
gentlemen  care  to  take  their  wives.  On  the 
opposite  side  to  the  hop-field  the  ground  fell 
away,  and  the  tips  of  two  hop-kilns  peered  at  us 
over  the  edge.  In  front  of  us,  concealed  by  the 
furze  and  other  bushes  of  a  prickly,  clinging 
nature,  lay  the  road,  along  which  people  going 
home  to  houses,  as  Edelgard  put  it,  were  con- 
stantly hurrying.  All  round,  except  on  the  hop- 
field  side,  we  could  see  much  farther  than  we 
wanted  to  across  a  cheerless  stretch  of  country. 
The  three  caravans  were  drawn  up  in  a  row  facing 
the  watery  sunset,  because  the  wind  chiefly  came 
from  the  east  (though  it  also  came  from  all  round) 
and  the  backs  of  the  vans  off^ered  more  resistance 
to  its  fury  than  any  other  side  of  them,  there 
being  only  one   small  wooden  window  in   that 


82  THE  CARAVANERS 

portion  of  them  which,  being  kept  carefully  shut 
by  us  during  the  whole  tour,  would  have  been 
infinitely  better  away. 

I  hope  my  hearers  see  the  caravans:  if  not  it 
seems  to  me  I  read  in  vain.  Square  —  or  almost 
square  —  brown  boxes  on  wheels,  the  door  in 
front,  with  a  big  aperture  at  the  side  of  it  shut 
at  night  by  a  wooden  shutter  and  affording  a 
pleasant  prospect  (when  there  was  one)  by  day, 
a  much  too  good-sized  window  on  each  side, 
the  bald  back  with  no  relief  of  any  sort  unless 
the  larders  can  be  regarded  as  such,  for  the  little 
shutter  window  I  have  mentioned  became  invis- 
ible when  shut,  and  inside  an  impression  (I  never 
use  a  word  other  than  deliberately),  an  impression, 
then,  I  say,  of  snugness,  produced  by  the  green 
carpet,  the  green  arras  lining  to  the  walls,  the 
green  eider-down  quilts  on  the  beds,  the  green 
portiere  dividing  the  main  room  from  the  small 
portion  in  front  which  we  used  as  a  dressing 
room,  the  flowered  curtains,  the  row  of  gaily 
bound  books  on  a  shelf,  and  the  polish  of  the 
brass  candle  brackets  that  seemed  to  hit  me 
every  time  I  moved.  What  became  of  this 
impression  in  the  case  of  one  reasonable  man, 
too  steady  to  be  blown  hither  and  thither  by 
passing  gusts  of  enthusiasm,  perhaps  the  narra- 
tive will  disclose. 

Meanwhile  the  confusion  on  the  common  was 


THE  CARAVANERS  83 

indescribable.  I  can  even  now  on  calling  it  to 
mind  only  lift  up  hands  of  amazement.  To  get 
the  three  horses  out  was  in  itself  no  easy  task  for 
persons  unaccustomed  to  such  work,  but  to  get 
the  three  tables  out  and  try  to  unfold  them  and 
make  them  stand  straight  on  the  uneven  turf  was 
much  worse.  All  things  in  a  caravan  have  hinges 
and  flaps,  the  idea  being  that  they  shall  take 
up  little  room;  but  if  they  take  up  little  room  they 
take  up  a  great  deal  of  time,  and  that  first  night 
when  there  was  not  much  of  it  these  patent 
arrangements  which  made  each  chair  and  table 
a  separate  problem  added  considerably  to  the 
prevailing  chaos.  Having  at  length  set  them 
out  on  wet  grass,  table-cloths  had  to  be  extracted 
from  the  depths  of  the  yellow  boxes  in  each  caravan 
and  spread  upon  them,  and  immediately  they  blew 
away  on  to  the  furze  bushes.  Recaptured  and 
respread  they  immediately  did  it  again.  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  when  I  ventured  to  say  that  I 
would  not  go  and  fetch  them  next  time  they  did 
it,  told  me  to  weigh  them  down  with  the  knives 
and  forks,  but  nobody  knew  where  they  were,  and 
their  discovery  having  defied  our  united  intelH- 
gences  for  an  immense  amount  of  pnscious  time 
was  at  last  the  result  of  the  merest  chance,  for 
who  could  have  dreamed  they  were  concealed 
among  the  bedding?  As  for  Edelgard,  I  com- 
pletely lost  control  over  her.    She  seemed  to  slip 


84  THE  CARAVANERS 

through  my  fingers  like  water.  She  was  every- 
where, and  yet  nowhere.  I  do  not  know  what 
she  did,  but  I  know  that  she  left  me  quite  unaided, 
and  I  found  myself  performing  the  most  menial 
tasks,  utterly  unfit  for  an  officer,  such  as  fetch- 
ing cups  and  saucers  and  arranging  spoons  in 
rows.  Nor,  if  I  had  not  witnessed  it,  would  I 
ever  have  believed  that  the  preparation  of  eggs 
and  coffee  was  so  difficult.  What  could  be  more 
frugal  than  such  a  supper?  Yet  it  took  the 
united  efforts  for  nearly  two  hours  of  seven  highly 
civilized  and  intelligent  beings  to  produce  it. 
Edelgard  said  that  that  was  why  it  did,  but  I  at 
once  told  her  that  to  reason  that  the  crude  and 
the  few  are  more  capable  than  the  clever  and  the 
many  was  childish. 

When,  with  immense  labour  and  infinite  con- 
versation, this  meagre  fare  was  at  last  placed 
upon  the  tables  it  was  so  late  that  we  had  to  light 
our  lanterns  in  order  to  be  able  to  see  it;  and  my 
hearers  who  have  never  been  outside  the  sheltered 
homes  of  Storchwerder  and  know  nothing  about 
what  can  happen  to  them  when  they  do  will  have 
difficulty  in  picturing  us  gathered  round  the  tables 
in  that  gusty  place,  vainly  endeavouring  to  hold 
our  wraps  about  us,  our  feet  in  wet  grass  and 
our  heads  in  a  stormy  darkness.  The  fitful 
flicker  of  the  lanterns  played  over  rapidly  cooling 
eggs  and  grave  faces.     It  was  indeed  a  bad  begin- 


THE  CARAVANERS  85 

ning,  enough  to  discourage  the  stoutest  holiday- 
maker.  This  was  not  a  hoUday:  this  was  priva- 
tion combined  with  exposure.  Frau  von  Eckthum 
was  wholly  silent.  Even  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh, 
although  she  tried  to  laugh,  produced  nothing  but 
hollow  sounds.  Edelgard  only  spoke  once,  and 
that  was  to  say  that  the  coffee  was  very  bad  and 
might  she  make  it  unaided  another  time,  a  remark 
and  a  question  received  with  a  gloomy  assent. 
Menzies-Legh  was  by  this  time  extremely  anxious 
about  the  girls,  and  though  his  wife  still  said 
they  were  naughty  and  would  be  scolded  it  was 
with  an  ever  fainter  conviction.  The  two  young 
men  sat  with  their  shoulders  hunched  up  to  their 
ears  in  total  silence.  No  one,  however,  was  half 
so  much  deserving  of  sympathy  as  myself  and 
Edelgard,  who  had  been  travelling  since  the  pre- 
vious morning  and  more  than  anybody  needed 
good  food  and  complete  rest.  But  there  were 
hardly  enough  scrambled  eggs  to  go  round,  most 
of  them  having  been  broken  in  the  jolting  up  the 
lane  on  to  the  common,  and  after  the  meal,  instead 
of  smoking  a  cigar  in  the  comparative  quiet  and 
actual  dryness  of  one's  caravan,  I  found  that 
everybody  had  to  turn  to  and  —  will  it  be  believed  ? 
—  wash  up. 

"No  servants,  you  know  —  so  free,  isn't  it?" 
said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  pressing  a  cloth  into  one 
of  my  hands  and  a  fork  into  the  other,  and  indi- 


86  THE  CARAVANERS 

eating  a  saucepan  of  hot  water  with  a  meaning 
motion  of  her  forefinger. 

Well,  I  had  to.  My  hearers  must  not  judge 
me  harshly.  I  am  aware  that  it  was  conduct 
unbecoming  in  an  officer,  but  the  circumstances 
were  unusual.  Menzies-Legh  and  the  young  men 
were  doing  it  too,  and  I  was  taken  by  surprise. 
Edelgard,  when  she  saw  me  thus  employed,  first 
started  in  astonishment  and  then  said  she  would 
do  it  for  me. 

"No,  no,  let  him  do  it,"  quickly  interposed 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  almost  as  though  she  liked 
me  to  wash  up  in  the  same  saucepan  as  herself. 

But  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  forks.  We  were 
still  engaged  in  the  amazingly  difficult  and  dis- 
tasteful work  of  cleaning  them  when  the  rain 
suddenly  descended  with  renewed  fury.  This 
was  too  much.  I  slipped  away  from  Mrs.  Menzies^ 
Legh's  side  into  the  darkness,  whispered  to  Edel- 
gard to  follow,  and  having  found  my  caravan 
bade  her  climb  in  after  me  and  bolt  the  door. 
What  became  of  the  remaining  forks  I  do  not 
know  —  there  are  limits  to  that  which  a  man  will 
do  in  order  to  have  a  clean  one.  Stealthily  we 
undressed  in  the  dark  so  that  our  lighted  windows 
might  not  betray  us  —  "Let  them  each,"  I  said 
to  myself  with  grim  humour,  "suppose  that  we 
are  engaged  helping  one  of  the  others"  —  and 
then,  Edelgard  having  ascended  into  the  upper 


THE  CARAVANERS  87 

berth  and  I  having  crawled  into  the  lower,  we 
lay  listening  to  the  loud  patter  of  the  rain  on  the 
roof  so  near  our  faces  (especially  Edelgard's), 
and  marvelled  that  it  should  make  a  noise  that 
could  drown  not  only  every  sound  outside  but 
also  our  voices  when  we,  by  shouting,  endeavoured 
to  speak. 


CHAPTER  V 

UNDER  the  impression  that  I  had  not  closed 
my  eyes  all  night  I  was  surprised  to  find 
when  I  opened  them  in  the  morning  that  I  had. 
I  must  have  slept,  and  with  some  soundness; 
for  there  stood  Edelgard,  holding  back  the  curtain 
that  concealed  me  when  in  bed  from  the  gaze  of 
any  curious  should  the  caravan  door  happen  to 
burst  open,  already  fully  dressed  and  urging  me 
to  get  up.  It  is  true  that  I  had  been  dreaming 
I  was  still  between  Flushing  and  Queenboro*,  so 
that  in  my  sleep  I  was  no  doubt  aware  of  the 
heavings  of  the  caravan  while  she  dressed;  for 
a  caravan  gives,  so  to  speak,  to  every  movement 
of  the  body,  and  I  can  only  hope  that  if  any  of 
you  ever  go  in  one  the  other  person  in  the  bed  above 
you  may  be  a  motionless  sleeper.  Indeed,  I 
discovered  that  after  all  it  was  not  an  advantage 
to  occupy  the  lower  bed.  While  the  rain  was 
striking  the  roof  with  the  deafening  noise  of 
unlimited  and  large  stones  I  heard  nothing  of 
Edelgard,  though  I  felt  every  time  she  moved. 
When,  however,  it  left  off,  the  creakings  and 
crunchings  of  her  bed  and  bedding  (removed  only 


THE  CARAVANERS  89 

a  few  inches  from  my  face)  every  time  she  turned 
round  were  so  alarming  that  disagreeable  visions 
crossed  my  mind  of  the  bed,  unable  longer  to 
sustain  a  weight  greater  perhaps  than  what  it 
v/as  meant  to  carry,  descending  in  ioto  in  one  of 
these  paroxysms  upon  the  helpless  form  (my 
own)  stretched  beneath.  Clearly  if  it  did  I  should 
be  very  much  hurt,  and  would  quite  likely  suf- 
focate before  assistance  could  be  procured.  These 
visions,  however,  in  spite  of  my  strong  impression 
of  unclosed  eyes,  must  ultimately  and  mercifully 
have  been  drowned  in  sleep,  and  my  bed  being 
very  comfortable  and  I  at  the  end  of  my  forces 
after  the  previous  day  when  I  did  sleep  I  did  it 
soundly  and  I  also  apparently  did  it  long;  for 
the  sun  was  coming  through  the  open  window 
accompanied  by  appetizing  smells  of  hot  coffee 
when  Edelgard  roused  me  by  the  information  that 
breakfast  was  ready,  and  that  as  everybody 
seemed  hungry  if  I  did  not  come  soon  I  might 
as  well  not  come  at  all. 

She  had  put  my  clothes  out,  but  had  brought 
me  no  hot  water  because  she  said  the  two  sisters 
had  told  her  it  was  too  precious,  what  there  was 
being  wanted  for  washing  up.  I  inquired  with 
some  displeasure  whether  I,  then,  were  less 
important  than  forks,  and  to  my  surprise  Edelgard 
replied  that  it  depended  on  whether  they  were 
silver;  which    was,    of    course,    perilously    near 


go  THE  CARAVANERS 

repartee.  She  immediately  on  delivering  this 
left  the  caravan,  and  as  I  could  not  go  to  the  door 
to  call  her  back  —  as  she  no  doubt  recollected 
—  I  was  left  to  my  cold  water  and  to  my  surprise. 
For  though  I  had  often  noticed  a  certain  talent 
she  has  in  this  direction  (my  hearers  will  remem- 
ber instances)  it  had  not  yet  been  brought  to 
bear  personally  on  me.  Repartee  is  not  amiss  in 
the  right  place,  but  the  right  place  is  never  one's 
husband.  Indeed,  on  the  whole  I  think  it  is  a 
dangerous  addition  to  a  woman,  and  best  left 
alone.  For  is  not  that  which  we  admire  in  woman 
womanliness  ?  And  womanliness,  as  the  very 
sound  of  the  word  suggests,  means  nothing  that 
is  not  round,  and  soft,  and  pliable;  the  word  as 
one  turns  it  on  one's  tongue  has  a  smoothly  liquid 
sound  as  of  sweet  oil,  or  precious  ointment,  or 
balm,  that  very  well  expresses  our  ideal.  Sharp 
tongues,  sharp  wits  —  what  are  these  but  draw- 
backs and  blots  on  the  picture .? 

Such  (roughly)  were  my  thoughts  while  I 
washed  in  very  little  and  very  cold  water,  and 
putting  on  my  clothes  was  glad  to  see  that  Edel- 
gard  had  at  least  brushed  them.  I  had  to  pin 
the  curtains  carefully  across  the  windows  because 
breakfast  was  going  on  just  outside,  and  hurried 
heads  kept  passing  to  and  fro  in  search,  no  doubt, 
of  important  parts  of  the  meal  that  had  either 
been  forgotten  or  were  nowhere  to  be  found. 


THE  CARAVANERS  91 

I  confess  I  thought  they  might  have  waited 
with  breakfast  till  I  came.  It  is  possible  that 
Frau  von  Eckthum  was  thinking  so  too;  but  as 
far  as  the  others  were  concerned  I  was  dealing, 
I  remembered,  with  members  of  the  most  in- 
considerate nation  in  Europe.  And  besides,  I 
reflected,  it  was  useless  to  look  for  the  courtesy 
we  in  Germany  delight  to  pay  to  rank  and  standing 
among  people  who  had  neither  of  these  things 
themselves.  For  what  was  Menzies-Legh  ?  A 
man  with  much  money  (which  is  vulgar)  and  no 
title  at  all.  Neither  in  the  army,  nor  in  the  navy, 
nor  in  the  diplomatic  service,  not  even  the  younger 
son  of  a  titled  family,  which  in  England,  as  perhaps 
my  hearers  have  heard  with  surprise,  is  a  circum- 
stance sometimes  sufficient  to  tear  the  title  a 
man  would  have  had  in  any  other  country  from 
him  and  send  him  forth  a  naked  Mr.  into 
the  world  —  Menzies-Legh,  I  suppose,  after  the 
fashion  of  our  friend  the  fabled  fox  in  a  similar 
situation,  saw  no  dignity  in,  nor  any  reason  why 
he  should  be  polite  to,  noble  foreign  grapes. 
And  his  wife's  original  good  German  blood  had 
become  so  thoroughly  undermined  by  the  action 
of  British  microbes  that  I  could  no  longer  regard 
her  as  a  daughter  of  one  of  our  oldest  families; 
while  as  for  the  two  young  men,  on  asking  Menzies- 
Legh  the  previous  evening  over  that  damp  and 
dreary  supper  of  insufficient  eggs  who  they  were. 


92  THE  CARAVANERS 

being  forced  to  do  so  by  his  not  having  as  a  Ger- 
man gentleman  would  have  done  given  me  every  in- 
formation at  the  earhest  opportunity  of  his  own 
accord,  with  details  as  to  income,  connections,  etc., 
so  that  I  would  know  the  exact  shade  of  cordiality 
my  behaviour  toward  them  was  to  be  tinged  with 
—  on  asking  Menzies-Legh,  I  repeat,  he  merely 
told  me  that  the  one  with  the  spectacles  and  the 
hollow  cheeks  and  the  bull  terrier  was  Browne, 
who  was  going  into  the  Church,  and  the  other 
with  the  Pomeranian  and  the  round,  hairless  face 
was  Jellaby. 

Concerning  Jellaby  he  said  no  more.  Who 
and  what  he  was  except  pure  Jellaby  I  would  have 
been  left  to  find  out  by  degrees  as  best  I  could 
if  I  had  not  pressed  him  further,  and  inquired 
whether  Jellaby  also  were  going  into  the  Church, 
and  if  not  what  was  he  going  into  ? 

Menzies-Legh  replied  —  not  with  the  lively 
and  detailed  interest  a  German  gentleman  would 
have  displayed  talking  about  the  personal  affairs 
of  a  friend,  but  with  an  appearance  of  being  bored 
that  very  extraordinarily  came  over  him  when- 
ever I  endeavoured  to  talk  to  him  on  topics  of 
real  interest,  and  disappeared  whenever  he  was 
either  doing  dull  things  such  as  marching,  or 
cleaning  his  caravan,  or  discussing  tiresome 
trivialities  with  the  others  such  as  some  foolish 
poem  lately  appeared,  or  the  best  kind  of  kitchen 


THE  CARAVANERS  93 

ranges  to  put  into  the  cottages  he  was  building 
for  old  women  on  his  estates  —  that  Jellaby  was 
not  going  into  anything,  being  in  already;  and 
that  what  he  was  in  was  the  House  of  Commons, 
where  he  was  not  only  a  member  of  the  Labour 
Party  but  also  a  Socialist. 

I  need  not  say  that  I  was  considerably  upset. 
Here  I  was  going  to  live,  as  the  English  say,  cheek 
by  jowl  for  a  substantial  period  with  a  Socialist 
member  of  Parliament,  and  it  was  even  then  plain 
to  me  that  the  caravan  mode  of  life  encourages, 
if  I  may  so  express  it,  a  degree  of  cheek  by  jowlish- 
ness  unsurpassed,  nay,  unattained,  by  any  other 
with  which  I  am  acquainted.  To  descend  to 
allegory,  and  taking  a  Prussian  officer  of  noble 
family  as  the  cheek,  how  terrible  to  him  of  all 
persons  on  God*s  earth  must  be  a  radical  jowl. 
Since  I  am  an  officer  and  a  gentleman  it  goes 
without  saying  that  I  am  also  a  Conservative. 
You  cannot  be  one  without  the  others,  at  least 
not  comfortably,  in  Germany.  Like  the  three 
Graces,  these  other  three  go  also  hand  in  ^hand. 
The  King  of  Prussia  is,  I  am  certain,  in  his  heart 
passionately  Conservative.  So  also  I  have  every 
reason  to  believe  is  God  Almighty.  And  from  the 
Conservative  point  of  view  (which  is  the  only 
right  one)  all  Liberals  are  bad  —  bad,  unworthy, 
and  unfit;  persons  with  whom  one  would  never 
dream  of  either  dining  or  talking;  persons  dwelling 


94  THE  CARAVANERS 

in  so  low  a  mental  and  moral  depth  that  to  dwell 
in  one  still  lower  seems  almost  extravagantly 
impossible.  Yet  in  that  lower  depth,  moving 
about  like  those  blind  monsters  science  tells  us 
inhabit  the  everlasting  darkness  of  the  bottom 
of  the  seas,  beyond  the  reach  of  light,  of  air,  and 
of  every  Christian  decency,  dwells  the  Socialist. 
And  who  can  be  a  more  impartial  critic  than 
myself?  Excluded  by  my  profession  from  any 
opinion  or  share  in  politics  I  am  able  to  look  on 
with  the  undisturbed  impartiality  of  the  disinter- 
ested, and  I  see  these  persons  as  a  danger  to  my 
country,  a  danger  to  my  King,  and  a  danger  (if 
I  had  any)  to  my  posterity.  In  consequence 
I  was  very  cold  to  Jellaby  when  he  asked  me  to 
pass  him  something  at  supper  —  I  think  it  was 
the  salt.  It  is  true  he  is  prevented  by  his  nation- 
ality from  riddling  our  Reichstag  with  his  poison- 
ous theories  (not  a  day  would  I  have  endured  his 
company  if  he  had  been  a  German)  but  the  broad 
principle  remained,  and  as  I  dressed  I  reflected 
with  much  ruefulness  that  even  as  it  was  his 
presence  was  almost  compromising,  and  I  could 
not  but  blame  Frau  von  Eckthum  for  not  having 
informed  me  of  its  imminence  beforehand. 

And  the  other  —  the  future  pastor,  Browne. 
A  pastor  is  necessary  and  even  very  well  at  a 
christening,  a  marriage,  or  an  interment;  but 
for  mingling  purposes  on  common  social  ground  — 


THE  CARAVANERS  95 

no.  Sometimes  at  public  dinners  in  Storchwerder 
there  has  been  one  in  the  background,  but  he  very 
properly  remained  in  it;  and  once  or  twice  dining 
with  our  country  neighbours  their  pastor  and 
his  wife  were  present,  and  the  pastor  said  grace 
and  his  wife  said  nothing,  and  they  felt  they  were 
not  of  our  class,  and  if  they  had  not  felt  it  of 
themselves  they  would  very  quickly  have  been 
made  to  feel  it  by  others.  This  is  all  as  it  should 
be:  perfectly  natural  and  proper;  and  it  was 
equally  natural  and  proper  that  on  finding  I  was 
required  to  do  what  the  English  call  hobnob 
with  a  future  pastor  I  should  object.  I  did  object 
strongly.  And  decided,  while  I  dressed,  that  my 
attitude  toward  both  Jellaby  and  Browne  should 
be  of  the  chilliest  coolness. 

Now  in  this  narrative  nothing  is  to  be  hidden, 
for  I  desire  it  to  be  a  real  and  sincere  human 
document,  and  I  am  the  last  man,  having  made 
a  mistake,  to  pass  it  over  in  silence.  My  friends 
shall  see  me  as  I  am,  with  all  my  human  weak- 
nesses and,  I  hope,  some  at  least  of  my  human 
strengths.  Not  that  there  is  anything  to  be 
ashamed  of  in  the  matter  of  him  Menzies-Legh 
spoke  baldly  of  as  Browne  —  rather  should 
Menzies-Legh  have  been  ashamed  of  leading 
me  through  his  uncommunicativeness  into  a 
natural  error;  for  how  could  I  be  supposed  to 
realize  that  the  singular  nation  places  the  Church 


96  THE  CARAVANERS 

as  a  profession  on  practically  the  same  level  as 
the  only  three  that  to  us  have  a  level  at  all,  namely, 
the  Army,  the  Navy,  and  the  Service  diplomatic 
or  ministerial  of  the  State  ? 

To  Browne,  therefore,  when  I  finally  climbed 
down  from  my  caravan  into  the  soaking  grass 
that  awaited  me  at  the  bottom  and  found  him 
breakfasting  alone,  the  others  being  scattered 
about  in  the  condition  of  feverish  yet  sterile 
activity  that  is  characteristic  of  caravan  life,  I 
behaved  in  a  manner  perfectly  suitable  applied 
to  an  ordinary  pastor  who  should  begin  to  talk  to 
me  with  an  air  of  equality  —  I  was,  that  is,  exceed- 
ingly stiff. 

He  pushed  the  coffee-pot  toward  me :  I  received 
it  with  a  cold  bow.  He  talked  of  the  rain  in  the 
night  and  his  fears  that  my  wife  had  been  dis- 
turbed by  it:  I  rephed  with  an  evasive  shrug. 
He  spoke  cheerily  of  the  brightness  of  the  morning, 
and  the  promise  it  held  of  a  pleasant  day:  I 
responded  with  nothing  more  convivial  than 
Perhaps  or  Indeed  —  at  this  moment  I  cannot 
recall  which.  He  suggested  that  I  should  partake 
of  a  thick  repulsive  substance  he  was  eating 
which  he  described  as  porridge  and  as  the  work 
of  Jellaby,  and  which  was,  he  said,  extraordinarily 
good  stuff  to  march  on:  I  sternly  repressed  a  very 
witty  retort  that  occurred  to  me  and  declined  by 
means  of  a  monosyllable.     In  a  word,  I  was  stiff. 


THE  CARAVANERS  97 

Judge  then  of  my  Vexation  and  dismay  when 
I  discovered  not  ten  minutes  later  by  the  merest 
accident  while  being  taken  by  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh 
to  a  farm  in  order  that  I  might  carry  back  the 
vegetables  she  proposed  to  buy  at  it,  that  the  young 
gentleman  not  only  has  a  title  but  is  the  son  of 
one  of  the  greatest  of  English  families.  He  is  a 
younger  son  of  the  Duke  of  Hereford,  that  wealthy 
and  well-known  nobleman  whose  sister  was  not 
considered  (on  the  whole)  unworthy  to  marry  our 
Prince  of  Grossburg-Niederhausen,  and  far  from 
being  mere  Browne  in  the  way  in  which  Jellaby 
was  and  remained  mere  Jellaby,  the  young  gentle- 
man I  had  been  deliberately  discouraging  was 
Browne  indeed,  but  with  the  transfiguring  addition 
of  Sigismund  and  Lord. 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  with  the  same  careless 
indifference  I  had  observed  in  her  husband,  spoke 
of  him  briefly  as  Sidge.  He  was,  it  appeared,  a 
distant  cousin  of  her  husband's.  I  had  to  question 
her  closely  and  perseveringly  before  I  could 
extract  these  details  from  her,  she  being  apparently 
far  more  interested  in  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  woman  at  the  farm  would  not  only  sell  us 
vegetables  but  also  a  large  iron  vessel  in  which 
to  stew  them.  Yet  it  is  clearly  of  great  importance 
first,  that  one  should  be  in  good  company,  and 
secondly,  that  one  should  be  told  one  is  in  it, 
because  if  one  is  not  told  how  in  the  world  is 


98  THE  CARAVANERS 

one  to  know  ?  And  my  hearers  will,  I  am  sure, 
sympathize  with  me  in  the  disagreeable  situation 
in  which  I  found  myself,  for  never  was  there,  I 
trust  and  beheve,  a  more  polite  man  than  myself, 
a  man  more  aware  of  what  he  owes  to  his  own 
birth  and  breeding  and  those  of  others,  a  man 
more  careful  to  discharge  punctiliously  all  the 
little  (but  so  important)  nameless  acts  of  courtesy 
where  and  whenever  they  are  due,  and  it  greatly 
distressed  me  to  think  I  had  unwittingly  rejected 
the  advances  of  the  nephew  of  an  aunt  whom  the 
entire  German  nation  agrees  to  address  on  her 
envelopes  as  Serene. 

While  I  bore  back  the  iron  vessel  called  a  stew- 
pot  which  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  had  unfortunately 
persuaded  the  farmer's  wife  to  sell  her,  and  also 
a  basket  (in  my  other  hand)  full  of  big,  unruly 
vegetables  such  as  cabbages,  and  smooth,  green 
objects,  unknown  to  me  but  resembling  shortened 
and  widened  cucumbers,  that  would  not  keep 
still  and  continually  rolled  into  the  road,  I  wished 
that  at  least  I  had  eaten  the  porridge.  It  could 
not  have  killed  me,  and  it  was  churlish  to  refuse. 
The  manner  of  my  refusal  had  made  the  original 
churlishness  still  more  churlish.  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  seek  out  Lord  Sigismund  without  delay 
and  endeavour  by  a  tactful  word  to  set  matters 
right  between  us,  for  one  of  my  principles  is  never 
to  be  ashamed  of  acknowledging  when  I  have  been 


THE  CARAVANERS  99 

in  the  wrong;  and  so  much  preoccupied  was  I 
deciding  on  the  exact  form  the  tactful  word  was 
to  take  that  I  had  hardly  time  to  object  to  the 
nature  and  size  of  my  burdens.  Besides,  I  was 
beginning  to  realize  that  burdens  were  going  to 
be  my  fate.  There  was  little  hope  of  escaping 
them,  since  the  other  members  of  the  party  bore 
similar  ones  and  seemed  to  think  it  natural.  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  at  that  moment  was  herself  carry- 
ing a  bundle  of  little  sticks  for  lighting  fires,  tied 
up  in  a  big  red  handkerchief  the  farmer's  wife 
had  sold  her,  and  also  a  parcel  of  butter,  and 
she  walked  along  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  odd 
figure  she  would  cut  and  the  wrong  impression 
she  would  give  should  we  by  any  chance  meet 
any  of  the  gentlefolk  of  the  district.  And  one 
should  always  remember,  I  consider,  when  one 
wishes  to  let  one's  self  go,  that  the  world  is  very 
small,  and  that  it  is  at  least  possible  that  the  last 
person  one  would  choose  as  a  witness  may  be 
watching  one  through  an  apparently  deserted 
hedge  with  his  eyeglasses  up.  Besides,  there  is 
no  pleasure  in  behaving  as  though  you  were  a 
servant,  and  old  James  certainly  ought  to  have 
accompanied  us  and  carried  our  purchases  back. 
Of  what  use  is  a  man  servant,  however  untidy, 
who  is  nowhere  to  be  seen  when  washing  up 
begins  or  shopping  takes  place  ?  Being  forced  to 
pause  a  moment  and  put  the  stew-pot  down  in 


100  THE  CARAVANERS 

order  to  rest  my  hand  (which  ached)  I  inquired 
somewhat  pointedly  of  my  companion  what  she 
supposed  the  inhabitants  of  Storchwerder  would 
say  if  they  could  see  us  at  that  moment. 

"They  wouldn't  say  anything/*  she  replied  — 
but  her  smile  is  not  equal  to  her  sister's  because 
she  has  only  one  dimple  —  "they'd  faint." 

"Exactly,"  said  I  meaningly;  adding,  after  a 
pause  sufficient  to  point  my  words,  "and  very 
properly." 

"Dear  Baron,"  said  she,  pretending  to  look 
all  innocent  surprise  and  curling  up  her  eyelashes, 
"do  you  think  it  is  wrong  to  carry  stew-pots? 
You  mustn't  carry  them,  then.  Nobody  must 
ever  do  what  they  think  wrong.  That's  what  is 
called  perjuring  one's  soul  —  a  dreadfully  wicked 
thing  to  do.  Do  you  suppose  I  would  have  you 
perjure  yours  for  the  sake  of  a  miserable  stew-pot  ? 
Put  it  down.  Don't  touch  the  accursed  thing. 
Leave  it  in  the  ditch.  Hang  it  on  the  hedge, 
ril  send  Sidge  for  it." 

Send  Sidge  ?  At  once  I  snatched  it  up  again, 
remarking  that  what  Lord  Sigismund  could  fetch 
I  hoped  Baron  von  Ottringel  could  carry;  to 
which  she  made  no  answer,  but  a  faint  little  sound 
as  we  resumed  our  journey  came  from  behind  her 
motor  veil,  whether  of  approval  and  acquiescence 
or  disapproval  and  contradiction  I  cannot  say,  for 
there   was   nothing,    on   looking   at   her   as   she 


Dear  Baron,"  said  she,  "  do  you  think  it  is  wrong  to 
carry  steiv-potsf  " 


THE  CARAVANERS  loi 

walked  beside  me,  to  go  on  except  the  tip  of  a 
slightly  inquiring  nose  and  the  tip  of  a  slightly 
defiant  chin  and  the  downward  curve  of  the  row 
of  ridiculously  long  eyelashes  that  were  on  the 
side  next  to  me. 

When  we  got  back  to  the  camp  we  found  it 
in  precisely  the  same  condition  in  which  we  had 
left  it  —  that  is,  in  confusion.  Every  one  seemed 
to  be  working  very  hard,  and  nothing  seemed  to 
be  different  from  what  it  was  a  full  hour  before. 
Indeed,  hours  seem  to  have  strangely  little  effect 
in  caravaning:  even  hours  and  hours  have  little; 
and  it  is  only  when  you  get  to  hours  and  hours 
and  hours  that  you  see  a  change.  In  our  prepa- 
rations each  morning  for  departure  it  always 
appeared  to  me  that  they  would  never  have 
ended  but  for  a  sudden  desperate  unanimous 
determination  to  break  them  off  and  go. 

The  two  young  girls  who  had  not  appeared 
the  previous  night  when  I  retired  to  rest  had  at 
last,  as  Menzies-Legh  would  say,  turned  up. 
They  had  done  this,  I  gathered,  early  in  the 
morning,  having  slept  with  their  governess  at  an 
inn  in  Wrotham,  she  being  a  discreet  person  who 
preferred  not  to  search  in  rain  and  darkness  for 
that  which  when  found  might  not  be  nice.  She 
had  arrived  after  breakfast,  handed  over  her 
charges,  and  taken  her  departure;  and  the  young 
girls  as  I  at  once  saw  were  not  young  girls  at 


102  THE  CARAVANERS 

all,  but  that  nondescript  creature  with  a  thick 
plait  down  its  back  and  a  disconcerting  way  of 
staring  at  one  that  we  in  Germany  describe  as 
Backfisch  and  the  EngHsh,  I  am  told,  allude  to  as 
flapper. 

Lord  Sigismund  was  cleaning  boots,  seated 
on  the  edge  of  a  table  in  his  shirt  sleeves  with 
these  two  nondescripts  standing  in  a  row  watching 
him,  and  I  was  greatly  touched  by  observing  that 
the  boot  he  was  actually  engaged  upon  at  the 
moment  of  our  approach  was  one  of  Edelgard's. 

This  was  magnanimity.  More  than  ever  was  I 
sorry  about  the  porridge.  I  hastily  put  down  the 
stew-pot  and  the  basket  and  hurried  across  to  him. 

**Pray  allow  me,"  I  said,  snatching  up  another 
boot  that  stood  on  the  table  at  his  side  and  plung- 
ing a  spare  brush  into  the  blacking. 

"That  one's  done,"  said  he,  pipe  in  mouth. 

"Ah,  yes — I  beg  your  pardon.    Are  these V* 

I  took  up  another  pair,  with  some  diffidence, 
for  the  done  ones  and  the  undone  ones  had  a 
singular  resemblance  to  each  other. 

"No.  But  you'd  better  take  off  your  coat, 
Baron  —  it's  hot  work." 

So  I  did.  And  much  relieved  to  hear  by  his 
tone  that  he  bore  me  no  ill  will  I  joined  him  on 
the  edge  of  the  table;  and  if  any  one  had  told 
me  a  week  before  that  a  day  was  at  hand  when  I 
should  clean  boots  I  would,  without  hesitation, 


Thus,  as  it  were,  with  blacking,  did  I  cement  my 
friendship  with  Lord  Sigismund 


THE  CARAVANERS  103 

have  challenged  him  to  fight,  the  extremity  of  the 
statement's  incredibleness  leaving  me  no  choice 
but  to  believe  it  a  deliberate  insult. 

Thus,  as  it  were  with  blacking,  did  I  cement 
my  friendship  with  Lord  Sigismund.  I  think  he 
thought  me  a  thoroughly  good  fellow  who  was 
only,  like  so  many  people,  a  little  stiff  at  break- 
fast, as  I  sat  there  helping  him,  my  hat  pushed 
back  off  my  forehead,  one  leg  swinging,  and  while 
I  brushed  and  blackened  chatting  cheerfully  about 
the  inferior  position  the  clergy  occupy  to  the 
German  eye.  I  am  sure  he  was  interested,  for  he 
paused  several  times  in  his  work  and  looked  at 
me  over  his  spectacles  with  much  attention.  As 
for  the  two  nondescripts,  they  never  took  their 
exceedingly  round  and  unblinking  eyes  off  me 
for  an  instant. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IT  was  twelve  o'clock  before  we  left  Grib's 
(or  Grip's)  Common,  lurching  off  it  by 
another  grassy  lane  down  into  the  road  in  the 
direction  of  Mereworth,  and  leaving,  as  we  after- 
ward discovered,  several  portions  of  our  equip- 
ment behind  us. 

"What  a  lovely,  sparkling  world!"  said  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,   coming  and  walking  beside  me. 

I  was  struggling  with  the  tempers  of  my  very 
obstinate  horse,  so  could  only  gasp  a  brief  assent. 

The  road  was  narrow,  and  wound  along  hard 
and  smooth  between  hedges  she  seemed  to  find 
attractive,  for  every  few  yards  she  stopped  to 
pull  something  green  out  of  them  and  take  it 
along  with  her.  The  heavy  rain  in  the  night  had 
naturally  left  things  wet,  and  there  being  a  bright 
sun  the  drops  on  the  blades  of  grass  and  on  the 
tips  of  the  leaves  could  not  help  sparkling,  but 
there  was  nothing  remarkable  in  that,  and  I 
would  not  have  noticed  it  if  she  had  not  looked 
round  with  such  apparent  extreme  delight  and 
sniffed  in  the  air  as  if  she  were  in  a  first-class  per- 
fumery shop  Unter  den  Linden  where  there  really 
!  Z04 


THE  CARAVANERS  105 

are  things  worth  sniffing.  Also  she  appeared  to 
think  there  was  something  very  wonderful  about 
the  sky,  which  was  just  the  ordinary  blue  one  has 
a  right  to  expect  in  summer  sprinkled  over  with 
the  usual  number  of  white  fine-weather  clouds, 
for  she  gazed  up  at  that  too,  and  evidently  with  the 
greatest  pleasure. 

*^  Schw'armerisch"  said  I  to  myself;  and  was 
internally  slightly  amused. 

My  hearers  will  agree  with  me  that  such  rap- 
tures are  well  enough  in  a  young  girl  in  a  white 
gown,  with  blue  eyes  and  the  washed-out  vir- 
ginal appearance  one  does  not  dislike  at  eighteen 
before  Love  the  Artist  has  pounced  on  it  and 
painted  it  pink,  and  they  will  also,  I  think,  agree 
that  the  older  and  married  women  must  take 
care  to  be  at  all  times  quiet.  Ejaculations  of  a 
poetic  or  ecstatic  nature  should  not,  as  a  rule, 
pass  their  lips.  They  may  ejaculate  perhaps 
over  a  young  baby  (if  it  is  their  own)  but  that  is 
the  one  exception;  and  there  is  a  good  reason  for 
this  one,  the  possession  of  a  young  baby  implying 
as  a  general  rule  a  corresponding  youth  in  its 
mother.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  it  is  nice 
when  a  woman  ejaculates  over,  say,  her  tenth 
young  baby.  The  baby,  of  course,  will  still  be 
sufficiently  young  for  it  is  a  fresh  one,  but  it  is  not 
a  fresh  mother,  and  by  that  time  she  should  have 
stiffened  into  stolidity,  and  apart  from  the  hours 


io6  THE  CARAVANERS 

devoted  to  instructing  her  servant,  silence.  Indeed, 
the  perfect  woman  does  not  talk  at  all.  Who 
wants  to  hear  her  ?  All  that  we  ask  of  her  is 
that  she  shall  listen  intelligently  when  we  wish, 
for  a  change,  to  tell  her  about  our  own  thoughts, 
and  that  she  should  be  at  hand  when  we  want 
anything.  Surely  this  is  not  much  to  ask. 
Matches,  ash-trays,  and  one's  wife  should  be,  so 
to  speak,  on  every  table;  and  I  maintain  that  the 
perfect  wife  copies  the  conduct  of  the  matches 
and  the  ash-trays,  and  combines  being  useful 
with  being  dumb. 

These  are  my  views,  and  as  I  drove  my  caravan 
along  the  gravelly  road  I  ruminated  on  them. 
The  great  brute  of  a  horse,  overfed  and  under- 
worked, v/as  constantly  endeavouring  to  pass 
the  Ailsa  which  was  in  front  of  us,  and  as  that 
meant  in  that  narrow  lane  taking  the  Elsa  up  the 
bank  as  a  preHminary,  I  was  as  constantly  en- 
deavouring to  thwart  him.  And  the  sun  being  hot 
and  I  (if  I  may  so  put  it)  a  very  meltable  man,  I 
soon  grew  tired  of  this  constant  tugging  and  looked 
round  for  Edelgard  to  come  and  take  her  turn. 

She  was  nowhere  to  be  seen. 

"Have  you  dropped  anything?"  asked  Frau 
von  Eckthum,  who  was  walking  a  little  way  behind. 

"No,'*  said  I;  adding,  with  much  readiness, 
"but  my  wife  has  dropped  me." 

"Oh!"  said  she. 


THE  CARAVANERS  107 

I  kept  the  horse  back  till  she  caught  me  up, 
while  her  leaner  sister,  who  did  not  slacken  her 
pace,  went  on  ahead.  Then  I  explained  my 
theory  about  wives  and  matches.  She  listened 
attentively,  in  just  the  way  the  really  clever  woman 
knows  best  how  to  impress  us  favourably  does, 
busying  herself  as  she  listened  in  tying  some 
flowers  she  had  gathered  into  a  bunch,  and  not 
doing  anything  so  foolish  as  to  interrupt. 

Every  now  and  then  as  I  warmed  and  drove 
my  different  points  home,  she  just  looked  at  me 
with  thoughtful  interest.  It  was  delightful.  I 
forgot  the  annoying  horse,  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
the  chill  of  the  wind,  the  bad  breakfast,  and  all 
the  other  inconveniences,  and  saw  how  charm- 
ing a  caravan  tour  can  be.  "Given,"  I  thought, 
"the  right  people  and  fine  weather,  such  a  holi- 
day is  bound  to  be  agreeable." 

The  day  was  undoubtedly  fine,  and  as  for  the 
right  people  they  were  amply  represented  by  the 
lady  at  my  side.  Never  had  I  found  so  good  a 
listener.  She  listened  to  everything.  She  took 
no  mean  advantage  of  one's  breath-pauses  to  hurry 
in  observations  of  her  own  as  so  many  women  do. 
And  the  way  she  looked  at  me  when  anything 
struck  her  particularly  was  sufficient  to  show  how 
keenly  appreciative  she  was.  After  all  there  is 
nothing  so  enjoyable  as  a  conversation  with  a 
thoroughly    competent    listener.     The   first    five 


io8  THE  CARAVANERS 

miles  flew.  It  seemed  to  me  that  we  had  hardly 
left  Grip's  Common  before  we  were  pulling  up  at 
a  wayside  inn  and  sinking  on  to  the  bench  in 
front  of  it  and  calling  for  drink. 

What  the  others  all  drank  was  milk,  or  a  gray, 
frothy  liquid  they  said  was  ginger-beer  —  childish, 
sweet  stufi^,  with  little  enough  beer  about  it,  heaven 
knows,  and  quite  unfit  one  would  think  for  the 
stomach  of  a  real  man.  Jellaby  brought  Frau 
von  Eckthum  a  glass  of  it,  and  even  provided  the 
two  nondescripts  with  refreshments,  and  they  took 
his  attentions  quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  instead 
of  adopting  the  graceful  German  method  of  min- 
istering to  the  wants  of  the  sterner  and  there- 
fore more  thirsty  sex. 

The  road  stretched  straight  and  white  as  far 
as  one  could  see  on  either  hand.  On  it  stood 
the  string  of  caravans,  with  old  James  watering 
the  horses  in  the  sun.  Under  the  shadow  of  the 
inn  we  sat  and  rested,  the  three  Englishmen,  to 
my  surprise,  in  their  shirt-sleeves,  a  condition  in 
which  no  German  gentleman  would  ever  show 
himself  to  a  lady. 

"Why?  Are  there  so  many  holes  in  them?" 
asked  the  younger  and  more  pink  and  white  of 
the  nondescripts,  on  hearing  me  remark  on  this 
difference  of  custom  to  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh;  and 
she  looked  at  me  with  an  air  of  grave  interest. 

Of  course    I    did   not   answer,   but   inwardly 


THE  CARAVANERS  109 

criticized  the  upbringing  of  the  EngHsh  child. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  nation  that  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  did  not  so  much  as  say  Hush  to  her. 

On  the  right,  the  direction  in  which  we  were 
going  to  travel,  the  road  dipped  down  into  a 
valley  with  distant  hills  beyond,  and  the  company, 
between  their  sips  of  milk,  talked  much  about 
the  blueness  of  this  distance.  Also  they  talked 
much  about  the  greenness  of  the  Mereworth 
woods  rustling  opposite,  and  the  way  the  sun 
shone;  as  though  woods  in  summer  were  ever 
anything  but  green,  and  as  though  the  sun,  when 
it  was  there  at  all,  could  do  anything  but  go  on 
shining! 

I  was  on  the  point  of  becoming  impatient  at 
such  talk  and  suggesting  that  if  they  would  only 
leave  off  drinking  milk  they  would  probably  see 
things  differently,  when  Frau  von  Eckthum  came 
and  sat  down  beside  me  on  the  bench,  her  ginger- 
beer  in  one  hand  and  a  biscuit,  also  made  of  ginger, 
in  the  other  (the  thought  of  what  they  must  taste 
like  together  made  me  shiver)  and  said  in  her 
attractive  voice: 

**I  hope  you  are  going  to  enjoy  your  holiday. 
I  feel  responsible,  you  know.''  And  she  looked 
at  me  with  her  pretty  smile. 

I  liked  to  think  of  the  gentle  lady  as  a  kind  of 
godmother,  and  made  the  proper  reply,  chivalrous 
and  sugared,  and  was  asking  myself  what  it  is 


no  THE  CARAVANERS 

that  gives  other  people's  wives  a  charm  one's  own 
never  did,  never  could,  and  never  will  possess, 
wheii  the  door-curtain  of  the  Elsa  was  pulled 
aside,  and  Edelgard,  whose  absence  at  our  siesta 
I  had  not  noticed,  stepped  out  on  to  the  platform. 

Lord  Sigismund  and  Jellaby  immediately  got 
up  and  unhooked  the  steps  and  held  them  for  her 
to  come  down  by.  Menzies-Legh  also  went 
across  and  offered  her  a  hand.  I  alone  sat  still, 
as  well  I  might;  for  not  only  am  I  her  husband, 
but  it  is  absurd  to  put  false  notions  of  her  impor- 
tance into  a  woman's  head  who  has  not  had  such 
attentions  paid  her  since  she  was  eighteen  and 
what  we  call  appetitUch. 

Besides,  I  was  rooted  to  the  bench  by  amaze- 
ment at  her  extraordinary  appearance.  No  won- 
der she  was  not  to  be  seen  when  duty  ought  to 
have  kept  her  at  my  side  helping  me  with  the 
horse.  She  had  not  walked  one  of  those  five  hot 
miles.  She  had  been  sitting  in  the  caravan, 
busily  cutting  her  skirt  short,  altering  her  hair, 
and  transforming  herself  into  as  close  a  copy  as  she 
could  manage  of  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  and  her 
sister. 

Small  indeed  was  the  resemblance  now  to  the 
Christian  gentlewoman  one  wishes  one's  wife  to 
seem  to  be.  Few  were  the  traces  of  Prussia. 
I  declare  I  would  not  have  recognized  her  had 
I  met  her  casually  in  the  road;  and  to  think 


THE  CARAVANERS  in 

she  had  dared  do  it  without  a  word,  without 
asking  my  permission,  without  even  asking  my 
opinion!  Her  nice  new  felt  hat  with  its  pheasant's 
wing  had  almost  disappeared  beneath  a  gauze  veil 
arranged  after  the  fashion  adopted  by  the  sisters. 
Heaven  knows  where  she  got  it,  or  out  of  what 
other  garment,  now  of  course  ruined,  she  had  cut 
and  contrived  it;  and  what  is  the  use  of  having 
a  pheasant's  wing  if  you  hide  it  ?.  Her  hair,  up 
to  then  so  tight  and  inconspicuous,  was  loosened, 
her  skirt  showed  almost  all  of  both  her  boots. 
The  whole  figure  was  strangely  like  that  of  the 
two  sisters,  a  little  thickened,  a  little  emphasized. 
What  galled  me  was  the  implied  entire  indiffer- 
ence to  my  authority.  My  mind's  indignant  eye 
saw  the  snap  her  fingers  were  executing  in  its  face. 
Also,  one's  own  wife  is  undoubtedly  a  thing  apart. 
It  is  proper  and  delightful  that  the  wives  of  others 
should  be  attractive,  but  one's  own  ought  to  be 
adorned  solely  with  the  ornament  of  a  meek  and 
quiet  spirit  combined  with  that  other  ornament, 
an  enduring  desire  to  keep  the  husband  God  has 
given  her  comfortable  and  therefore  happy.  With- 
out these  two  a  wife  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  fit 
object  for  her  husband's  esteem.  I  plainly  saw 
that  I  would  find  it  impossible  to  esteem  mine  in 
that  skirt.  I  do  not  know  what  she  had  done  to 
her  feet,  but  they  looked  much  smaller  than  I 
had  been  accustomed   to  suppose  them  as  she 


112  THE  CARAVANERS 

came  down  the  steps  assisted  by  the  three  gentle- 
men. My  full  beer-glass,  held  neglected  in  my 
hand,  dripped  unheeded  on  to  the  road  as  I 
stared  stupidly  at  this  apparition.  Rapidly  I 
selected  the  first  few  of  the  phrases  I  would 
address  to  her  the  moment  we  found  ourselves 
alone.  There  should  be  an  immediate  stop  put 
to  this  loosening  of  the  earth  round  the  roots  of  the 
great  and  sheltering  tree  of  a  husband's  authority. 

"  Poor  silly  sheep,'*  I  could  not  help  murmuring, 
those  animals  flashing  into  my  mind  as  a  legitimate 
development  of  the  sheltering-tree  ^mage. 

Then  I  felt  there  was  a  quotation  atmosphere 
about  them,  and  was  sure  Horace  or  Virgil  — 
elusive  bugbears  of  my  boyhood  —  must  have  said 
something  that  began  like  that  and  went  on 
appropriately  if  only  I  could  remember  it.  I 
regretted  that  having  forgotten  it  I  was  unable 
to  quote  it,  to  myself  as  it  were,  but  yet  just  loud 
enough  for  the  lady  beside  me  to  hear.  She, 
however,  heard  what  I  did  say,  and  looked  at  me 
inquiringly. 

"If  I  were  to  explain,  dear  lady,"  said  I, 
instantly  responding  to  the  look,  "you  would  not 
understand." 

"Oh,"  said  she. 

"  I  was  thinking  in  symbols." 

"Oh,"  said  she. 

"It  is  one  of  my  mental  tricks,"  I  said,  my 


THE  CARAVANERS  113 

gaze  however  contracting  sternly  as  it  fell  on 
Edelgard's  approaching  form. 

"Oh,"  said  she. 

Certainly  she  is  a  quiet  lady.  But  how  stimu- 
lating. Her  solitary  oh's  are  more  packed  with 
expressiveness  than  other  women's  hour-long 
tirades. 

She  too  was  watching  Edelgard  coming  to- 
ward us  across  the  sun-beaten  bit  of  road,  her 
head  slightly  turned  away  from  me  but  not  so 
much  that  I  could  not  see  she  was  smiling  at  my 
wife.  Of  course  she  must  have  been  amused 
at  such  a  slavish  imitation;  but  with  her  usual 
kindness  she  made  room  on  the  bench  for  her 
and,  without  alluding  to  the  transformation,  sug- 
gested refreshment. 

Edelgard  as  she  sat  down  shot  a  very  curious 
glance  at  me  round  the  corner  of  her  head- 
wrappings.  I  was  surprised  to  see  little  that 
could  be  called  apology  in  her  way  of  sitting 
down,  and  looked  in  vain  for  the  red  spot  that 
used  to  appear  on  each  cheek  at  home  when  she 
was  aware  that  she  had  done  wrong  and  that  it 
was  not  going  to  be  passed  over.  She  was 
sheltered  from  immediate  steps  on  my  part  by 
Frau  von  Eckthum  who  sat  between  us,  and 
when  Jellaby  approached  her  with  a  glass  of  milk 
she  actually  took  it  without  so  much  as  breath- 
ing the  honest  word  beer. 


114  THE  CARAVANERS 

This  was  too  much.  I  threw  back  my  head 
and  laughed  as  heartily  as  I  have  ever  seen  a  man 
laugh.  Edelgard  and  milk!  Why,  I  do  not  believe 
she  had  drunk  it  pure  like  that  since  the  day 
she  parted  from  the  last  of  her  infancy's  bottles. 
Edelgard  becoming  squeamish;  Edelgard  pos- 
ing—  and  what  a  pose;  good  heavens,  what  a 
pose!  Edelgard,  one  of  Prussia's  daughters,  one 
of  Prussia's  noblemen's  daughters,  accepting  milk 
instead  of  beer,  and  accepting  it  at  the  hands  of  a 
Socialist  in  shirt  sleeves.  A  vision  of  Storch- 
werder's  face  if  it  could  see  these  things  rose 
before  me.  Of  course  I  laughed.  Not,  mind  you, 
without  some  slight  tinge  of  bitterness,  for  laughter 
may  be  bitter  and  hearty  at  the  same  time,  but  on 
the  whole  I  think  I  did  credit  to  my  unfailing 
sense  of  humour  in  spite  of  very  great  provoca- 
tion, and  I  laughed  till  even  the  horses  pricked 
up  their  ears  and  turned  their  heads  and  stared. 

Nobody  else  smiled.  On  the  contrary  —  it 
cannot  be  true  that  laughter  is  infectious  —  they 
watched  me  with  a  serious,  amusingly  serious, 
surprise.  Edelgard  did  not  watch.  She  knew 
better  than  that.  Carefully  she  concealed  her 
face  in  the  milk,  feeling  no  doubt  it  was  the  best 
place  for  it,  and  unable  to  leave  off  drinking  the 
stuff  because  of  the  problem  of  how  to  meet  my 
eyes  once  she  did.  Frau  von  Eckthum  regarded 
me  with  much  the  same  attentive  interest  she  had 


O 
O 


<-3 

o 


e 
-« 


is 


r-j-f. 


THE  CARAVANERS  115 

shown  when  I  was  explaining  some  of  my  views 
to  her  on  the  march  —  I  mean,  of  course,  my  views 
on  wives,  but  language  is  full  of  pitfalls.  The 
Menzies-Legh  niece  (they  called  her  Jane)  paused 
in  the  middle  of  a  banana  to  stare.  Her  friend, 
who  answered  to  the  singular  name  (let  us  hope 
it  was  merely  a  sobriquet)  of  Jumps,  forgot  to 
continue  greedily  pressing  biscuits  into  her  mouth, 
and,  forgetting  also  that  her  mouth  was  open  to 
receive  them,  left  it  in  that  condition.  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  got  up  and  snap-shotted  me.  Men- 
zies-Legh leaned  forward  when  I  had  had 
my  laugh  nearly  out  and  said:  "Come,  Baron,  let 
us  share  the  joke?'*  But  his  melancholy  voice 
belied  his  words,  and  looking  round  at  him  I 
thought  he  seemed  little  in  the  mood  for  sharing 
anything.  I  never  saw  such  a  solemn,  dull  face; 
it  shrivelled  up  my  merriment  just  to  see  it.  So 
I  merely  shrugged  one  of  my  shoulders  and  said 
it  was  a  German  joke. 

*'Ah,"  said  Menzies-Legh;  and  did  not  press 
me  further.  And  Jellaby,  wiping  his  forehead 
(on  which  lay  perpetually  a  long,  lank  strand  of 
hair  which  he  was  as  perpetually  brushing  aside 
with  his  hand,  apparently  desirous  of  not  having 
it  there,  but  only  apparently,  for  five  seconds 
with  any  competent  barber  would  have  rid  him 
of  it  forever) — Jellaby,  I  say,  asking  Menzies- 
Legh  in  his  womanish  tenor  voice  if  the  green 


ii6  THE  CARAVANERS 

shadows  in  the  wood  opposite  did  not  remind 
him  of  some  painter  friend's  work,  they  began 
talking  pictures  as  though  they  were  as  important 
every  bit  as  the  great  objects  of  life  —  wealth,  and 
war,  and  a  foot  on  the  neck  of  the  nations. 

Well,  it  was  impossible  to  help  contrasting 
their  sluggishness  with  a  party  of  Germans  under 
similar  conditions.  Edelgard  would  have  been 
greeted  with  one  immense  roar  of  laughter  on 
her  appearing  suddenly  in  her  new  guise.  She 
would  have  been  assailed  with  questions,  pelted 
with  mocking  comments,  and  I  might  have  ex- 
pressed my  own  disapproval  frankly  and  openly 
and  no  one  would  have  thought  it  anything  but 
natural.  There,  however,  in  that  hypocritical 
country  they  one  and  all  pretended  not  to  have 
seen  any  change  at  all;  and  there  was  something 
so  depressing  about  so  many  stiff  and  lantern 
jaws  whichever  way  I  turned  my  head  that  after 
my  one  Homeric  burst  I  found  myself  unable  to 
go  on.  A  joke  soon  palls  if  nobody  else  can  see 
it.  In  silence  I  drank  my  beer:  and  realized  that 
my  opinion  of  the  nation  is  low. 

It  was  chiefly  Menzies-Legh  and  Jellaby  who 
sent  down  the  mercury,  I  reflected,  as  we  resumed 
the  march.  One  gets  impressions,  one  knows  not 
how  or  why,  nor  does  one  know  when.  I  had  not 
spoken  much  to  either,  yet  there  the  impressions 
were.     It  was  not  hkely  that  I  could  be  mistaken, 


THE  CARAVANERS  117 

for  I  suppose  that  of  all  people  in  the  world  a 
Prussian  officer  is  the  least  likely  to  be  that.  He 
is  too  shrewd,  too  quick,  of  too  disciplined  an 
intelligence.  It  is  these  qualities  that  keep  him 
at  the  top  of  the  European  tree,  combined,  indeed, 
with  his  power  of  concentrating  his  entire  being 
into  one  noble  determination  to  stay  on  it.  Again 
descending  to  allegory,  I  can  see  Menzies-Legh 
and  Jellaby  and  all  the  other  slow-spoken  and 
slow-thoughted  Englishmen  flapping  ineffectually 
among  the  lower  and  more  comfortable  branches 
of  the  tree  of  nations.  Yes,  they  are  more  shel- 
tered there;  they  have  roomier  nests;  less  wind 
and  sun;  less  distance  to  fly  in  order  to  fetch  the 
waiting  grub  from  the  moss  beneath;  but  what 
about  the  Prussian  eagle  sitting  at  the  top,  his 
beak  flashing  in  the  light,  his  watchful  eye  never 
off  them?  Some  day  he  will  swoop  down  on 
them  when  they  are,  as  usual,  asleep,  clear  out 
their  and  similar  well-lined  nests,  and  have  the 
place  to  himself  —  becoming,  as  the  well-known 
picture  has  it  (for  I  too  can  allude  to  pictures),  in 
all  his  glory  Enfin  seul. 

The  road  went  down  straight  and  long  and 
white  into  the  flat.  High  dusty  hedges  shut  us 
in  on  either  side.  Across  the  end,  which  looked 
an  interminable  way  off,  lay  the  blue  distance  the 
milk  drinkers  admired.  The  three  caravans 
creaked    over    the    loose    stones.    Their    brown 


ii8  THE  CARAVANERS 

varnish  glistened  blindingly  in  the  sun.  The 
horses  plodded  onward  with  hanging  heads,  sub- 
dued, no  doubt,  by  the  growing  number  of  the 
hours.  It  was  half-past  three,  and  there  were  no 
signs  of  camp  or  dinner;  no  signs  of  our  doing 
anything  but  walk  along  like  that  in  the  dust, 
our  feet  aching,  our  throats  parching,  our  eyes 
burning,  and  our  stomachs  empty,  forever. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  MAN  who  is  writing  a  book  should  have  a 
free  hand.  When  I  began  my  narrative  I 
hardly  reaHzed  this,  but  I  do  now.  No  longer  is 
Edelgard  allowed  to  look  over  my  shoulder.  No 
longer  are  the  sheets  left  lying  open  on  my  desk. 
I  put  Edelgard  off  with  the  promise  that  she  shall 
hear  it  when  it  is  done.  I  lock  it  up  when  I  go 
out.  And  I  write  straight  on  without  wasting 
time  considering  what  this  or  that  person  may 
like  or  not. 

At  the  end,  indeed,  there  is  to  be  a  red  pencil, 
—  an  active  censor  running  through  the  pages 
making  danger  signals,  and  whenever  on  our  beer 
evenings  I  come  across  its  marks  I  shall  pause, 
and  probably  cough,  till  my  eye  has  found  the 
point  at  which  I  may  safely  resume  the  reading. 
Our  guests  will  tell  me  that  I  have  a  cold,  and  I 
shall  not  contradict  them;  for  whatever  one  may 
say  to  one  friend  at  a  time  in  confidence  about, 
for  instance,  one's  wife,  one  is  bound  to  protect 
her  collectively. 

I  hope  I  am  clear.  Sometimes  I  fear  I  am 
not,  but  language,  as  I  read  in  the  paper  lately, 

119 


120  THE  CARAVANERS 

is  but  a  clumsy  vehicle  for  thought,  and  on  this 
clumsy  vehicle  therefore,  overloaded  already  with 
all  I  have  to  say,  let  us  lay  the  whole  blame, 
using  it  (to  descend  to  quaintness)  as  a  kind 
of  tarpaulin  or  other  waterproof  cover,  and  tuck- 
ing it  in  carefully  at  the  corners.  I  mean  the 
blame.  Also,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  this  is 
the  maiden  flight  of  my  Muse,  and  that  even  if  it 
were  not,  a  gentleman  cannot  be  expected  to  write 
with  the  glibness  of  your  Jew  journalist  or  other 
professional  quill-driver. 

We  did  not  get  into  camp  that  first  day  till 
nearly  six  (much  too  late,  my  friends,  if  you  should 
ever  find  yourselves  under  the  grievous  necessity 
of  getting  into  such  a  thing),  and  we  had  great 
difficulty  in  finding  one  at  all.  That,  indeed,  is  a 
very  black  side  of  caravaning;  camps  are  rarely 
there  when  they  are  wanted,  and,  conversely, 
frequently  so  when  they  are  not.  Not  once,  nor 
twice,  but  several  times  have  I,  with  the  midday 
sun  streaming  vertically  on  my  head,  been  obliged 
to  labour  along  past  a  most  desirable  field,  with 
just  the  right  aspect,  the  sheltering  trees  to  the 
north,  the  streamlet  for  the  dish-washing  loitering 
about  waiting,  the  yard  full  of  chickens,  and 
cream  and  eggs  ready  to  be  bought,  merely  because 
it  came,  the  others  said,  too  early  in  the  march  and 
we  had  not  yet  earned  our  dinner.  Earned  our 
dinner?     Why,  long  before  I  left  the  last  night's 


THE  CARAVANERS  121 

camp  I  had  earned  mine,  if  exhaustion  from 
overwork  is  what  they  meant,  and  earned  it  well 
too.  I  pity  a  pedant;  I  pity  a  mind  that  is  made  up 
like  a  bed  the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  and  goes 
on  grimly  like  that  all  day,  refusing  to  be  unmade 
till  a  certain  fixed  evening  hour  has  been  reached; 
and  I  assert  that  it  is  a  sign  of  a  large  way  of 
thinking,  of  the  intellectual  pliability  characteristic 
of  the  real  man  of  the  world,  to  have  no  such 
hard  and  fast  determinations  and  to  be  always 
ready  to  camp.  Left  to  myself,  if  I  were  to 
see  the  right  spot  ten  minutes,  nay,  five,  after 
leaving  the  last  one,  I  would  instantly  pounce 
on  it.  But  no  man  can  pounce  instantly  on 
anything  who  shall  not  first  have  rid  himself 
of  his  prejudices. 

On  that  second  day  of  dusty  endeavouring  to 
get  to  Sussex,  which  was  and  remained  in  the 
much  talked  of  blue  distance,  we  passed  no  spot 
at  all  except  one  that  was  possible.  That  one, 
however,  was  very  possible  indeed  in  the  eyes  of 
persons  who  had  endured  sun  and  starvation  since 
the  morning  —  a  shaded  farmhouse,  of  an  appear- 
ance that  pleased  the  ladies  owing  to  the  great 
profusion  of  flowers  clambering  up  and  down  it, 
an  orchard  laden  with  fruit  suggestive  of  dessert, 
a  stream  whose  clear  waters  promised  an  excellent 
foot  bath,  and  fat  chickens  in  great  numbers, 
merely  to  look  on  whom  caused  little  rolls  of  bacon 


122  THE  CARAVANERS 

and  dabs  of  bread  sauce  and  even  fragments  of 
salad  to  dance  delightfully  before  one's  eyes. 

But  the  woman  was  cross.  Worse,  she  was 
inhuman.  She  was  a  monster  of  indifference  to 
the  desires  of  her  fellow-creatures,  deaf  to  their 
offers  of  payment,  stony  in  regard  to  their  pains. 
Arguing  with  her,  we  gave  up  one  by  one  our  first 
more  succulent  visions,  and  retreating  before  the 
curtness  of  her  refusals  let  first  the  camp  beneath 
the  plum  trees  go,  then  the  dessert,  then  the 
chickens  with  their  etcaeterasy  then,  still  further 
backward,  and  fighting  over  each  one,  egg  after 
egg  of  all  those  many  eggs  we  were  so  sure  she 
would  sell  us  and  we  wanted  so  badly  to  buy. 

Audaciously  she  swore  she  had  no  eggs,  while 
there  beneath  our  very  eyes  walked  chickens 
brimful  of  the  eggs  of  the  morrow.  Where 
were  the  eggs  of  the  morning,  and  where  the 
eggs  of  yesterday  ?  To  this  question,  put  by 
me,  she  replied  that  it  was  no  business  of  mine. 
Accursed  British  female,  —  certainly  not  lady, 
doubtfully  even  woman,  but  emphatically  Weib 
—  of  twisted  appearance,  and  a  gnarled  and 
knotty  age!  May  you  in  your  turn  be  refused 
rest  and  nourishment  when  hard  put  to  it  and 
willing  to  pay,  and  after  you  have  marched  five 
hours  in  the  sun  controlling,  from  your  feet,  the 
wayward  impulses  of  a  big,  rebellious  horse. 

She  shut  the  door  while  yet  we  were  protesting. 


THE  CARAVANERS  123 

In  silence  we  trooped  back  down  the  brick  path 
between  rose  bushes  that  were  tended  with  a  care 
she  denied  humans,  to  where  the  three  caravans 
waited  hopefully  in  the  road  for  the  call  to  come 
in  and  be  at  rest. 

We  continued  our  way  subdued.  This  is  a 
characteristic  of  those  who  caravan,  that  in  the 
afternoons  they  are  subdued.  So  many  things 
have  happened  to  them  by  then;  and,  apart  from 
that,  they  have  daily  got  by  then  into  that  physical 
condition  doctors  describe  as  run  down  —  or,  if 
I  may  alter  it  better  to  fit  this  special  case,  walked 
down.  Subdued,  therefore,  we  journeyed  along 
flat  uncountrified  roads,  reminding  one,  by  the 
frequent  recurrence  of  villas,  of  the  outskirts  of 
some  big  town  rather  than  the  seclusion  it  had 
been  and  still  was  our  aim  to  court,  and  in  this 
way  we  came  at  last  to  a  broad  and  extremely 
sophisticated  bridge  crossing  a  river  some  one 
murmured  was  Medway. 

Houses  and  shops  lined  its  approach  on  the 
right.  On  the  left  was  a  wide  and  barren  field 
with  two  donkeys  finding  difliculties  in  collecting 
from  the  scanty  herbage  a  sufficiency  of  supper. 
In  the  gutter,  opposite  a  public  house,  stood  a 
piano-organ,  emitting  the  sounds  of  shrill  yet 
unconvincing  joyfulness  natural  to  those  instru- 
ments, and  mingled  with  these  was  a  burr  of 
machinery  at  work,  and  a  smell  of  so  searching  a 


124  THE  CARAVANERS 

nature  that  it  provoked  Frau  von  Eckthum  into 
a  whole  sentence  —  a  plaintive  and  faintly  spoken 
one,  but  a  long  one  —  describing  her  conviction 
that  there  must  be  a  tannery  somewhere  near,  and 
that  it  was  very  disagreeable.  Her  plaintiveness 
increased  a  hundredfold  when  Menzies-Legh 
announced  that  camp  we  must  at  all  costs  or  night 
would  be  upon  us. 

We  drew  up  in  the  middle  of  the  road  while 
Lord  Sigismund  made  active  inquiries  of  the 
inhabitants  as  to  which  of  them  would  be  willing 
to  lend  us  a  field. 

"But  surely  not  here?"  murmured  Frau  von 
Eckthum,  holding  her  little  handkerchief  to  her 
nose. 

It  was  here,  however,  and  in  the  field,  said 
Lord  Sigismund  returning,  containing  the  donkeys. 
For  the  privilege  of  sharing  with  these  animals 
their  bare  and  shelterless  field,  exposed  as  it  was 
to  all  the  social  amenities  of  the  district,  including 
the  piano-organ,  the  shops  opposite,  the  smell  of 
leather  in  the  making,  and  the  company  as  long 
as  the  light  lasted  of  innumerable  troops  of  chil- 
dren, the  owner  would  make  us  a  charge  of  half 
a  crown  per  caravan  for  the  night,  but  this  only 
on  condition  that  we  did  not  turn  out,  as  he 
appeared  to  have  had  the  greatest  suspicions  we 
would  turn  out,  to  be  a  circus. 

With  a  flatness  of  which  I  would  not  have 


But  surely  not  here,"  murmured  Frau  von  Eckthum 


THE  CARAVANERS  125 

thought  her  capable  Frau  von  Eckthum  refused 
to  spend  a  night  in  the  donkey  field;  and  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  who  was  absorbed  in  snap-shotting 
the  ever-swelling  crowd  of  children  and  loafers  who 
were  surrounding  us,  suddenly  stamped  her  foot 
and  said  she  would  not  either. 

"The  horses  can't  go  another  yard,"  remon- 
strated Menzies-Legh. 

"I  won't  sleep  with  the  donkeys,"  said  his 
wife,  taking  another  snap. 

Her  sister  said  nothing,  but  held  her  handker- 
chief as  before. 

Then  Jellaby,  descrying  a  hedge  with  willows 
beyond  it  at  the  far-away  end  of  the  field,  and  no 
doubt  conscious  of  a  parliamentary  practice  in 
persuasion,  said  he  would  get  permission  to  go  in 
there  for  the  night,  and  disappeared.  Lord  Sigis- 
mund  expressed  doubts  as  to  his  success,  for  the 
man,  he  said,  was  apparently  own  brother  to  the 
female  at  the  farm,  or  at  any  rate  of  the  closest 
spiritual  affinity;  but  Jellaby  did  come  back  after 
a  while,  during  which  the  piano-organ's  waltzes 
had  gone  on  accentuating  the  blank  dreariness  of 
the  spot,  and  said  it  was  all  right. 

Later  on  I  discovered  that  what  he  called 
all  right  was  paying  exactly  twice  as  much  per 
caravan  for  the  superior  exclusiveness  of  the  willow 
field  as  what  was  demanded  for  the  donkey  field. 
Well,  he  did  not  have  to  pay,  being  Menzies- 


126  THE  CARAVANERS 

Legh*s  guest,  so  no  doubt  he  did  think  it  all  right; 
but  I  call  it  monstrous  that  I  should  be  asked  to 
pay  that  which  would  have  secured  me  a  perfectly 
dry  bedroom  with  no  grass  in  it  in  a  first-rate  Berlin 
hotel  for  the  use  for  a  few  hours  of  a  gnat-haunted, 
nettle-infested,  low-lying,  swampy  meadow. 

The  monstrosity  struck  me  more  afterward 
when  I  looked  back.  That  evening  I  was  too  tired 
to  be  struck,  and  would,  I  truly  believe,  have  paid 
five  shillings  just  for  being  allowed  to  sink  down 
into  a  sitting  position,  it  mattered  not  where,  and 
remain  in  it;  but  there  was  still  much,  I  feared  to 
do  and  to  suffer  before  I  could  so  sink  down  — 
for  instance,  there  was  the  gate  leading  into  the 
donkey  field  to  be  got  through,  the  whole  popu- 
lation watching,  and  the  pleasant  prospect  before 
me  of  having  to  reimburse  any  damage  done  to  a 
caravan  that  could  only,  under  the  luckiest  cir- 
cumstances, just  fit  in.  Then  there  was  Edelgard 
to  be  brought  to  reason,  and  suppose  she  refused  to 
be  brought?  That  is,  quickly;  for  I  had  no 
fears  as  to  her  ultimate  bringing. 

Well,  the  gate  came  first,  and  as  it  would  require 
my  concentrated  attention  I  put  the  other  away 
from  me  till  I  should  be  more  at  leisure.  Old 
James,  assisted  by  Menzies-Legh,  got  the  Ailsa 
safely  through,  and  away  she  heaved,  while  the 
onlookers  cheered,  over  the  mole  heaps  toward 
the  willows  on  the  horizon.    Then  Menzies-Legh, 


THE  CARAVANERS  127 

calling  Jellaby,  came  to  help  me  pull  the  Elsa 
through,  Lord  Sigismund  waiting  with  the  third 
horse,  who  had  been  his  special  charge  throughout 
the  day.  It  seemed  all  very  well  to  help  me,  but 
any  scratches  to  the  varnish  caused  by  the  two 
gentlemen  in  their  zeal  would  be  put  in  my  bill, 
not  in  theirs,  and  under  my  breath  I  called  down 
a  well-known  Pomeranian  curse  of  immense  body 
and  scope  on  all  those  fools  who  had  helped  in  the 
making  of  the  narrow  British  gates. 

As  I  feared,  there  was  too  much  of  that  zele 
that  somebody  (I  think  he  was  French)  advised 
somebody  else  (I  expect  he  must  have  been 
English)  not  to  have,  and  amid  a  hubbub  of 
whoas  —  which  is  the  island  equivalent  for  our 
so  much  more  lucid  brrr  —  shouts  from  the 
onlookers,  and  a  scream  or  two  from  Edelgard 
who  could  not  listen  unmoved  to  the  crashings  of 
our  crockery,  Menzies-Legh  and  Jellaby  between 
them  drew  the  brute  so  much  to  one  side  that  it 
was  only  owing  to  my  violent  efforts  that  a  terrible 
accident  was  averted.  If  they  had  had  their  way 
the  whole  thing  would  have  charged  into  the 
right-hand  gate  post  —  with  what  a  crashing  and  a 
parting  from  its  wheels  may  be  imagined  —  but 
thanks  to  me  it  was  saved,  although  the  left-hand 
gate  post  did  scrape  a  considerable  portion  of 
varnish  off  the  Elsa's  left  (so  to  speak)  flank. 

"I  say,'*  said  the  Socialist  when  it  was  all  over. 


128  THE  CARAVANERS 

brushing  his  bit  of  hair  aside,  "you  shouldn't 
have  pulled  that  rein  like  that." 

The  barefaced  audacity  of  putting  the  blame 
on  to  me  left  me  speechless. 

"No/*  said  Menzies-Legh,  "you  shouldn't  have 
pulled  anything." 

He  too!  Again  I  was  left  speechless  —  left, 
indeed,  altogether,  for  they  immediately  dropped 
behind  to  help  (save  the  mark)  Lord  Sigismund 
bring  the  Ilsa  through. 

So  the  Elsa  in  her  turn  heaved  away,  guided 
anxiously  by  me  over  the  mole  heaps,  every  mole 
heap  being  greeted  by  our  pantry  as  we  passed 
over  it  with  a  thunderous  clapping  together  of  its 
contents,  as  though  the  very  cups,  being  English, 
were  clapping  their  hands,  or  rather  handles,  in 
an  ecstasy  of  spiteful  pleasure  at  getting  broken 
and  on  to  my  bill. 

Little  do  you  who  only  know  cups  in  their 
public  capacity,  filled  with  liquids  and  standing 
quietly  in  rows,  realize  what  they  can  do  once 
they  are  let  loose  in  a  caravan.  Sometimes  I 
have  thought  —  but  no  doubt  fancifully  —  that 
so-called  inanimate  objects  are  not  as  inanimate  as 
one  might  think,  but  are  possessed  of  a  character 
like  other  people,  only  one  of  an  unadulterated 
pettiness  and  perversity  rarely  found  in  the  human. 
I  believe  most  people  who  had  been  in  my  place 
that  evening  last  August  guiding  the  Elsa  across 


THE  CARAVANERS  129 

all  the  irregularities  that  lay  between  us  and  the 
willow-field  in  the  distance,  and  had  listened  to 
what  the  cups  were  doing,  would  have  been  sure  of 
it.  As  for  me,  I  can  only  say  that  every  time  I 
touch  a  cup  or  other  piece  of  crockery  it  seems 
to  upset  it,  and  frequently  has  such  an  effect  on 
it  that  it  breaks;  and  it  is  useless  for  Edelgard 
to  tell  me  to  be  careful,  and  to  hint  (as  she  does 
when  she  is  out  of  spirits)  that  I  am  clumsy,  because 
I  am  careful;  and  as  for  being  clumsy,  everybody 
knows  that  I  have  the  straightest  eye  and  am  the 
best  shot  in  our  regiment.  But  it  is  not  only  cups. 
If,  while  I  am  dressing  (or  undressing)  I  throw 
any  portion  of  my  clothes  or  other  article  I  may 
be  using  on  to  a  table  or  a  chair,  however  carefully 
I  aim  it  invariably  either  falls  at  once,  or  after 
a  brief  hesitation  slips  off  on  to  the  floor  from 
which  place,  in  its  very  helplessness,  it  seems  to 
jeer  at  me.  And  the  more  important  it  is  I  should 
not  be  delayed  the  more  certainly  is  this  conduct 
indulged  in.  Fanciful  ?  Perhaps.  But  let  me 
remind  you  of  what  the  English  poet  Shake- 
speare says  through  the  mouth  of  Hamlet  into 
the  ears  of  Horatio,  and  express  the  wish  that 
you  too  could  have  listened  to  the  really  exultant 
clapping  of  the  cups  in  our  pantry  as  I  crossed 
the  mole  heaps. 

Edelgard,  feeling  guilty,  remained  behind,  so 
was  not  there  as  she  otherwise  certainly  would 


130  THE  CARAVANERS 

have  been  making  anxious  sums,  according  to  her 
custom,  in  what  these  noises  were  going  to  cost 
us.  A  man  who  has  been  persuaded  to  take  a 
holiday  because  it  is  cheap  may  be  pardoned  for 
being  preoccupied  when  he  finds  it  is  Hkely  to  be 
dear.  Among  other  things  I  thought  some  very 
sharp  ones  about  the  owner  of  the  field,  who 
permitted  his  ground,  in  defiance  I  am  sure 
(though  not  being  an  agriculturist  I  cannot  give 
chapter  and  verse  for  my  belief)  of  all  laws  of 
health  and  wholesomeness,  to  be  so  much  ravaged 
by  moles.  If  he  had  done  his  duty  my  cups 
would  not  have  been  smashed.  The  heaps  of 
soil  thrown  up  by  these  animals  were  so  frequent 
that  during  the  entire  crossing  at  least  one  of  the 
Elsa's  wheels  was  constantly  on  the  top  of  a  heap, 
and  sometimes  two  of  her  wheels  simultaneously 
on  the  top  of  two. 

It  is  a  pity  people  do  not  know  what  other 
people  think  of  them.  Unfortunately  it  is  rude 
to  tell  them,  but  if  only  means  could  be  devised  — 
perhaps  by  some  Marconi  of  the  mind  —  for  letting 
them  know  without  telling  them,  how  nice  and 
modest  they  would  all  become.  That  farmer  was 
probably  eating  his  supper  in  his  snug  parlour  in 
bestial  complacency  and  ignorance  at  the  very 
moment  that  I  was  labouring  across  his  field 
pouring  on  him,  if  he  had  only  known  it,  a  series 
of  as  scalding  criticisms  as  ever  made  a  man,  if 


THE  CARAVANERS  131 

he  were  aware  of  them,  shrivel  and  turn  over  a 
new  leaf. 

I  found  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  at  the  farther 
gate,  holding  it  open.  Old  James  had  already 
got  his  horse  out,  and  when  he  saw  me  approaching 
came  and  laid  hold  of  the  bridle  of  mine  and  led 
him  through.  He  then  drew  him  up  parallel 
with  the  Ailsa,  the  doors  of  both  caravans  being 
toward  the  river,  and  proceeded  with  the  skill 
and  expedition  natural  in  an  old  person  who  had 
done  nothing  else  all  his  life  to  unharness  my 
horse  and  turn  him  loose. 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  lit  a  cigarette  and  handed 
me  her  case.  She  then  dropped  down  on  to  the 
long  and  very  damp-looking  grass  and  motioned 
to  me  to  sit  beside  her;  so  we  sat  together,  I 
much  too  weary  either  to  refuse  or  to  converse, 
while  the  muddy  river  slid  sullenly  along  within 
a  yard  of  us  between  fringes  of  willows,  and 
myriads  of  gnats  gyrated  in  the  slanting  sunbeams. 

"Tired?"  said  she,  after  a  silence  that  no 
doubt  surprised  her  by  its  length. 

"Too  tired,"  said  I,  very  shortly. 

"Not  really?"  said  she,  turning  her  head  to 
look  at  me,  and  affecting  much  surprise  about  the 
eyebrows. 

This  goaded  me.  The  woman  was  inhuman. 
For  beneath  the  affected  surprise  of  the  eyebrows 
I  saw  well  enough  the  laughter  in  the  eyes,  and 


132  THE  CARAVANERS 

it  has  always  been  held  since  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  that  to  laugh  at  physical  incapacitation 
is  a  thing  beyond  all  others  barbarous. 

I  told  her  so.  I  tossed  away  the  barely  begun 
cigarette  she  had  given  me,  not  choosing  to  go 
on  smoking  a  cigarette  of  hers,  and  told  her  so 
with  as  much  Prussian  thoroughness  as  is  con- 
sistent with  being  at  the  same  time  a  perfect 
gentleman.  No  woman  (except  of  course  my  wife) 
shall  ever  be  able  to  say  I  have  not  behaved  to 
her  as  a  gentleman  should;  and  my  hearers  will 
be  more  than  ever  convinced  of  the  inexplicable 
toughness  of  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh's  nature,  of  the 
surprising  impossibility  of  producing  the  least 
effect  upon  her,  when  I  tell  them  that  at  the 
end  of  quite  a  long  speech  on  my  part,  not,  I 
believe  ineloquent,  and  yet  as  plainspoken  as 
the  speech  of  a  man  can  be  within  the  frame- 
work which  should  always  surround  him,  the 
carved  and  gilt  and  —  it  must  be  added  —  expen- 
sive framework  of  gentlemanliness,  she  merely 
looked  at  me  again  and  said: 

"Dear  Baron,  why  is  it  that  men,  when  they 
have  walked  a  little  farther  than  they  want  to,  or 
have  gone  hungry  a  little  longer  than  they  like  to, 
are  always  so  dreadfully  cross  ?'* 

The  lumbering  into  the  field  of  the  Ilsa  with 
the  rest  of  the  party  made  an  immediate  reply 
impossible. 


THE  CARAVANERS  133 

"Hullo,"  said  Jellaby,  on  seeing  us  apparently 
at  rest  in  the  grass.     **  Enjoying  yourselves  ?" 

I  fancy  this  must  be  a  socialistic  formula,  for 
short  as  the  period  of  my  acquaintance  with  him 
had  been  he  had  already  used  it  to  me  three 
times.  Perhaps  it  is  the  way  in  which  his  sect 
reminds  those  outside  it  of  the  existence  of  its 
barren  and  joyless  notions  of  other  people's  obli- 
gations. A  Socialist,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out, 
is  a  person  who  may  never  sit  down.  If  he  does, 
the  bleak  object  he  calls  the  Community  imme- 
diately becomes  vocal,  because  it  considers  that  by 
sitting  down  he  is  cheating  it  of  what  he  would 
be  producing  by  his  labour  if  he  did  not.  Once  I 
(quite  good  naturedly)  observed  to  Jellaby  that  in 
a  socialistic  world  the  chair-making  industry  would 
be  the  first  to  go  to  the  wall  (or  the  dogs  —  I  cannot 
quite  recollect  which  I  said  it  would  go  to)  for 
want  of  suitable  sitters,  and  he  angrily  retorted  — 
but  this  occurred  later  in  the  tour,  and  no  doubt 
I  shall  refer  to  it  in  its  proper  place. 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  got  up  at  once  on  his  asking 
if  we  were  enjoying  ourselves,  as  though  her  con- 
cience  reproached  her,  and  went  over  to  the  larder 
of  her  caravan  and  busily  began  pulling  out  pots; 
and  I  too  seeing  that  it  was  expected  of  me  prepared 
to  rise  (for  English  society  is  conducted  on  such 
artificial  lines  that  immediately  a  woman  begins 
to  do  anything  a  man  must  at  least  pretend  to  do 


134  THE  CARAVANERS 

something  too)  but  found  that  my  short  stay  on 
the  grass  had  stiffened  my  over-tired  limbs  to 
such  an  extent  that  I  could  not. 

The  two  nondescripts,  who  were  passing,  lin- 
gered to  look. 

"Can  I  help  you?"  said  the  one  they  called 
Jumps,  as  I  made  a  second  ineffectual  effort, 
advancing  and  holding  out  a  knuckly  hand. 

"Will  you  take  my  arm?"  said  the  other  one, 
Jane,  crooking  a  bony  elbow. 

"Thank  you,  thank  you,  dear  children,"  I 
said,  with  bland  heartiness  one  assumes  —  for 
no  known  reason  —  toward  the  offspring  of  stran- 
gers; and  obliged  to  avail  myself  of  their  assistance 
(for  want  of  practice  makes  it  at  all  times  difficult 
for  me  to  get  up  from  a  flat  surface,  and  my  stiff- 
ness on  this  occasion  turned  the  difficult  into  the 
impossible),  I  somehow  was  pulled  on  to  my  feet. 

"Thank  you,  thank  you,"  I  said  again,  adding 
jestingly,  "I  expect  I  am  too  old  to  sit  on  the 
ground."  ^ 

"Yes,"  said  Jane. 

This  was  so  unexpected  that  I  could  not  repress 
a  slight  sensation  of  annoyance,  which  found  its 
expression  in  sarcasm. 

"I  am  extremely  obliged  to  you  young  ladies," 
I  said,  sweeping  off  my  Panama,  "for  extending 
your  charitable  support  and  assistance  to  such  a 
poor  old  gentleman." 


c::^ 


?5> 
S 


THE  CARAVANERS  135 

"Oh,"  said  Jumps  earnestly,  too  thick-skinned 
to  feel  sarcasm,  "I'm  used  to  it.  I  have  to  help 
Papa  about.     He's  very  old  too." 

"Yet  surely,"  said  I,  tingeing  my  sarcasm  with 
playfulness  (but  they  were  too  thick-skinned  even 
for  playfulness),  "surely  not  so  old  as  I  ?" 

"About  the  same,"  said  Jumps,  considering 
me  gravely. 

"And  how  old,"  said  I,  inquiring  of  Jane, 
for  Jumps  annoyed  me  too  much,  "may  your 
friend's  excellent  parent  be?" 

"Oh,  about  sixty,  or  seventy,  or  eighty,"  said 
she,  indifferently. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  children  of  England "  I  remarked, 
when  they  had  gone  their  way,  their  arms 
linked  together,  to  Lord  Sigismund  who  was 
hurrying  past  to  the  river  with  a  bucket  —  but  he 
interrupted  me   by   shouting   over   his   shoulder: 

"Will  you  stay  and  light  the  fire,  or  come 
with  us  and  forage  for  food  ? " 

Light  the  fire  ?  Why,  what  are  women  for  ? 
Even  Hermann,  my  servant,  would  rebel  if  he 
instead  of  Clothilde  had  to  light  fires.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  forage  ?  Go  back  across  that 
immense  field  and  walk  from  shop  to  shop  on  feet 
that  had  for  some  time  past  been  unable  to  walk 
at  all  ?  And  then  return  weighed  down  with  the 
results  ? 

"Do  you  understand  fires.  Baron?"  said  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  appearing  suddenly  behind  me. 

"As  much,  I  suppose,  as  intelligence  unaided 
by  experience  does,*'  said  I  unwillingly. 

"Oh,  but  of  course  you  do,"  said  she,  putting 
a  box  of  matches  —  one  of  those  enormous  English 
boxes  that  never  failed  to  arouse  my  amused 
contempt,  for  they  did  not  light  a  single  fire  or 

136 


THE  CARAVANERS  137 

candle  more  than  their  handy  little  continental 
brethren  —  into  my  right  hand,  and  the  red 
handkerchiefful  of  sticks  bought  that  morning 
into  my  left,  "of  course  you  do.  You  must 
have  got  quite  used  to  them  in  the  wars." 

"What  wars?"  I  asked  sharply.  "You  surely 
do  not  imagine  that  I " 

"Oh,  were  you  too  young  for  Sedan  and  all 
that?"  she  asked,  as  she  crossed  over  the  very 
long  and  very  green  grass  toward  a  distant  ditch 
and  I  found  that  I  was  expected  to  cross  with  her. 

"I  was  so  young,"  I  said,  more  nettled  than 
my  hearers  will  perhaps  understand,  but  then  I  was 
tired  out  and  no  longer  able  to  bear  much,  "so 
young  that  I  had  not  even  reached  the  stage  of 
being  born." 

"Not  really?"    said  she. 

"Yes,"  said  I.  "I  was  still  spending  my 
birthdays  among  the  angels." 

This,  of  course,  was  not  strictly  true,  but  one 
likes  to  take  off  a  few  years  in  the  presence  of  a 
woman  who  has  left  her  Gotha  Almanach  at  home, 
and  it  was,  I  felt,  a  picturesque  notion  —  I  mean 
about  the  birthdays  and  the  angels. 

"Not  really?"    said  she  again. 

And  what,  I  thought,  as  we  walked  on  together, 
is  all  this  talk  about  young  and  not  young?  If 
a  man  is  not  young  in  the  forties  when  will  he  be  ? 
I  have  never  concealed  my  age,  which  is  about  five 


138  THE  CARAVANERS 

or  six  and  forty,  with  perhaps  a  year  or  two  added 
on,  but  as  I  take  little  notice  of  birthdays  it  is  just 
as  likely  the  year  or  two  ought  to  be  added  off, 
and  the  forties  are  universally  acknowledged  by  all 
persons  who  are  in  them  to  be  the  very  flower  and 
prime  of  life,  or  rather  the  beginning  of  the  very 
flower  and  prime,  the  beginning  of  the  final  unfold- 
ing of  the  last  crumple  in  the  last  petal. 

I  should  have  thought  this  state  of  things  was 
visible  enough  in  me,  plain  enough  to  any  ordinary 
onlooker.  I  have  neither  a  gray  hair  nor  a  wrinkle. 
My  moustache  is  as  uninterruptedly  blond  as  ever. 
My  face  is  perfectly  smooth.  And  when  my  hat 
is  on  there  is  no  difference  whatever  between  me 
and  a  person  of  thirty.  Of  course  I  am  not  a 
narrow  man,  weedy  in  the  way  in  which  Jellaby  is 
weedy,  and  unable  as  he  is  unable  to  fill  out  my 
clothes;  but  it  is  laughable  that  just  breadth  should 
have  made  those  two  fledglings  place  me  in  the 
same  category  as  an  exceedingly  venerable  and 
obviously  crippled  old  gentleman. 

I  expect  the  truth  is  that  in  England  children 
are  ill-trained  and  educated,  and  their  perceptions 
are  allowed  to  remain  rudimentary.  It  must  be 
so,  for  so  few  of  them  wear  spectacles.  Clearly 
education  is  not  carried  on  with  anything  like  our 
systematic  rigor,  for  except  on  Lord  Sigismund  I 
had  up  to  then  nowhere  seen  these  artificial  aids 
to  eyesight,  and  in  Germany  at  least  two-thirds  of 


THE  CARAVANERS  139 

our  young  people,  as  a  result  of  their  application, 
wear  either  spectacles  or  pince-nez.  They  may 
well  be  proud  of  them.  They  are  the  visible 
proof  of  a  youth  spent  entirely  at  its  books,  the 
hoisted  standard  of  an  ordered  and  studious  life. 

"The   children  of   England  "    I    began 

vigorously  to  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  desirous  of 
expressing  a  few  of  my  objections  to  them  to 
a  lady  who  could  not  be  supposed  to  mind,  she 
being  one  of  my  own  countrywomen  —  but  she 
too  interrupted  me. 

"This  is  the  most  sheltered  place,"  she  said, 
pointing  to  the  dry  ditch.  "You'll  find  more  sticks 
in  that  little  wood.     You  will  want  heaps  more." 

And  she  left  me. 

Well,  I  had  never  made  a  fire  in  my  life.  I 
stood  there  for  a  moment  in  great  hesitation  as  to 
how  to  begin.  They  should  not  say  I  was  unwill- 
ing, those  ant-like  groups  over  by  the  caravans 
so  feverishly  hurrying  hither  and  thither,  but 
to  do  a  thing  one  must  begin  it,  and  as  there  are 
no  doubt  several  ways  of  lighting  a  fire,  even  as 
there  are  several  ways  of  doing  anything  else  in 
life,  I  stood  uncertain  while  I  asked  myself  which 
of  these  several  ways  (all  of  them,  I  must  concede, 
unknown  to  me)  I  ought  to  choose. 

The  ditch  had  a  hedge  on  its  farther  side,  and 
through  a  gap  in  it  I  saw  the  wood,  cleared  in 
places    and    overgrown    between    the    remaining 


140  THE  CARAVANERS 

stumps  by  bracken  and  brambles,  wherein  I 
was,  as  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  said,  to  find  more 
sticks.  The  first  thing  to  be  done,  then,  was  to 
find  the  sticks,  for  the  handkerchief  contained  the 
merest  handful;  and  this  was  a  hard  task  among 
brambles  at  the  end  of  a  dinnerless  day,  and 
likely,  besides,  to  prove  ruinous  to  my  stockings. 

The  groups  at  the  caravans  were  peeling  the 
potatoes  and  other  vegetables  we  had  bought  at 
the  farm  near  Grip's  Common  that  morning,  and 
were  doing  it  with  an  expedition  that  showed  how 
hunger  was  triumphing  over  fatigue.  Jellaby 
hurried  to  and  fro  to  a  small  spring  among  the 
bracken  fetching  water.  Menzies-Legh  and  Lord 
Sigismund  had  disappeared  in  the  distance  that  led 
to  the  shops.  Old  James  was  feeding  the  horses. 
I  could  see  the  two  fledglings  sitting  on  the  grass 
with  bowed  heads  and  flushed  cheeks  absorbed 
in  the  shredding  of  cabbages.  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  had  begun,  with  immense  energy,  to  peel 
potatoes.  Her  gentle  sister  —  I  deplored  it  —  was 
engaged  on  an  onion.  Nowhere,  look  as  I  might 
(for  I  needed  her  assistance)  could  I  see  my  wife.  • 

Then  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  raising  her  eyes 
from  her  potatoes,  saw  me  standing  motionless 
and  called  out  that  the  vegetables  would  soon  be 
ready  for  the  fire,  but  she  feared  if  I  were  not 
quick  the  fire  would  not  soon  be  ready  for  the 
vegetables;    and  thus  urged,  and  contrary  to  my 


THE  CARAVANERS  141 

first  intention,  I  hastily  emptied  the  sticks  out  of 
the  handkerchief  into  the  ditch  and  began  to 
endeavour  to  Hght  them. 

But  they  would  not  light.  Match  after  match 
flared  an  instant,  then  went  out.  It  was  a  windy 
evening,  and  I  saw  no  reason  for  supposing  that 
any  match  would  stay  alight  long  enough  to  get 
even  one  stick  to  catch  fire.  I  went  down  on  my 
knees  and  interposed  my  person  between  the  sticks 
and  the  wind,  but  though  the  matches  then  burned 
to  the  end  (where  were  my  fingers)  the  sticks  took 
no  more  notice  than  if  they  had  been  of  iron. 
Losing  patience  I  said  something  aloud  and  not,  I 
am  afraid,  quite  complimentary,  about  wives  who 
neglect  their  duties  and  kick  in  shortened  skirts 
over  the  traces  of  matrimony;  and  Edelgard's 
voice  immediately  responded  from  the  other 
side  of  the  hedge.  **But  lieher  Otto,'*  it  said, 
"is  it  then  my  fault  that  you  have  forgotten 
the  paper?" 

I  straightened  myself  and  looked  at  her.  She 
had  already  been  on  the  search  for  sticks,  for  as 
she  advanced  to  the  gap  and  stood  in  it  I  saw  she 
had  an  apronful  of  them.  I  must  say  I  was  sur- 
prised at  her  courage  in  confronting  me  thus  alone, 
when  she  was  aware  I  must  be  gravely  displeased 
with  her  and  could  only  be  waiting  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  tell  her  so.  She,  however,  with  the 
cunning  common  to  wives,  called  me  lieher  Otto 


142  THE  CARAVANERS 

as  though  nothing  had  happened,  did  not  allude  to 
my  overheard  exclamation  and  sought  to  soften 
me  with  sticks. 

I  looked  at  her  therefore  very  coldly.  "No," 
I  said,  "I  had  not  forgotten  the  paper." 

And  this  was  true,  because  to  forget  paper  (or 
indeed  anything  else)  you  must  first  of  all  have 
thought  of  it,  and  I  had  not. 

"Perhaps,"  I  went  on,  my  coldness  descending 
as  I  spoke  below  zero,  which  is  the  point  in  our 
well-arranged  thermometers  (either  Celsius  or 
Reaumur,  but  none  of  their  foolish  Fahrenheits) 
where  freezing  begins,  "perhaps,  since  you  are  so 
clever,  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  light  the  fire 
yourself.  Any  one,"  I  continued  with  emphasis, 
"can  criticize.  We  will  now,  if  you  please,  change 
places,  and  you  shall  bring  your  unquestioned  gifts 
to  bear  on  this  matter,  while  I  assume  the  role 
suited  to  lesser  capacity,  and  merely  criticize." 

This  of  course,  was  bitter;  but  was  it  not  a 
justified  bitterness?  Unfortunately  I  shall  have 
to  suppress  the  passage  I  suppose  at  the  reading 
aloud,  so  shall  never  hear  the  verdict  of  my  friends; 
but  even  without  that  verdict  (and  I  well  know 
what  it  would  be,  for  they  all  have  wives)  even 
without  it  I  can  honestly  call  my  bitterness  justi- 
fied.    Besides,  it  was  very  well  put. 

She  listened  in  silence,  and  then  just  said,  "Oh, 
Otto,"  and  came  down  at  once  into  the  ditch,  and 


But,  lieher  Otto,  is  it  then  my  fault  that  you  have 
forgotten  the  paper f  " 


THE  CARAVANERS  143 

bending  over  the  sticks  began  to  arrange  them 
quickly  on  some  stones  she  picked  up. 

I  did  not  like  to  sit  down  and  smoke,  which  is 
what  I  would  have  done  at  home  (supposing  such 
a  situation  as  the  Ottringels  lighting  a  fire  out-of- 
doors  in  Storchwerder  were  conceivable),  because 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  would  probably  have  imme- 
diately left  off  peeling  her  potatoes  to  exclaim, 
and  Jellaby  would,  I  dare  say,  have  put  down  his 
buckets  and  come  over  to  inquire  if  I  were  enjoy- 
ing myself.  Not  that  I  care  ten  pfennings  for 
their  opinions,  and  I  also  passionately  disapprove 
of  the  whole  English  attitude  toward  women; 
but  I  am  a  fair-minded  man,  and  believe  in  going 
as  far  as  is  reasonable  with  the  well-known  maxim 
of  behaving  in  Rome  as  the  Romans  behave. 

I  therefore  just  stood  with  my  back  to  the 
caravans  and  watched  Edelgard.  In  less  time  than 
I  take  to  write  it  she  had  piled  up  the  sticks, 
stuffed  a  bit  of  newspaper  she  drew  from  her  apron 
underneath  them,  lit  them  by  means  (as  I  noted)  of 
a  single  match,  and  behold  the  fire,  crackling  and 
blazing  and  leaping  upward  or  outward  as  the 
wind  drove  it. 

No  proof,  if  anything  further  in  that  way  were 
needed,  could  be  more  convincing  as  to  the  posi- 
tion women  are  intended  by  nature  to  fill.  Their 
instincts  are  all  of  the  fire-lighting  order,  the  order 
that  serves  and  tends;    while  to  man,  the  noble 


144  THE  CARAVANERS 

dreamer,  is  reserved  the  place  in  life  where  there  is 
room,  dignity,  and  uninterruption.  Else  how  can 
he  dream  ?  And  without  his  dreams  there  would 
be  no  subsequent  crystallization  of  dreams;  and  all 
that  we  see  of  good  and  great  and  wealth-bringing 
was  once  some  undisturbed  man's  dream. 

But  this  is  philosophy;  and  you,  my  friends, 
who  breathe  the  very  air  handed  down  to  you  by 
our  Kegels  and  our  Kants,  who  are  born  into  it 
and  absorb  it  whether  you  want  to  or  not  through 
each  one  of  your  infancy's  pores,  you  do  not  need 
to  hear  the  Ottringel  echo  of  your  own  familiar 
thoughts.  We  in  Storchwerder  speak  seldom 
on  these  subjects  for  we  take  them  for  granted ;  and 
I  will  not  in  this  place  describe  too  minutely  all 
that  passed  through  my  mind  as  I  watched,  in  that 
grassy  solitude,  at  the  hour  when  the  sun  in  setting 
lights  up  everything  with  extra  splendour,  my  wife 
piling  sticks  on  the  fire. 

Indeed,  what  did  pass  through  it  was  of  a 
mixed  nature.  It  seemed  so  strange  to  be  there; 
so  strange  that  that  meadow,  in  all  its  dampness, 
its  high  hedge  round  three  sides  of  it,  its  row  of 
willows  brooding  over  the  sulky  river,  its  wood  on 
the  one  hand,  its  barren  expanse  of  mole-ridden 
field  on  the  other,  and  for  all  view  another  meadow 
of  exact  similarity  behind  another  row  of  exactly 
similar  willows  across  the  Medway,  it  seemed  so 
strange  that  all  this  had  been  lying  there  silent  and 


THE  CARAVANERS  145 

empty  for  heaven  knows  how  many  years,  the 
exact  spot  on  which  Edelgard  and  I  were  standing 
waiting,  as  it  were,  for  its  prey  throughout  the 
entire  period  of  our  married  Hfe  in  Storchwerder 
and  of  my  other  married  life  previous  to  that, 
while  we,  all  unconscious,  went  through  the  series 
of  actions  and  thoughts  that  had  at  length  landed 
us  on  it.  Strange  fruition  of  years.  Stranger  the 
elaborate  leading  up  to  it.  Strangest  the  inability 
of  man  to  escape  such  a  destiny.  Regarded  as  the 
fruition  of  years  it  was  certainly  paltry,  it  was  cer- 
tainly a  disproportionate  destiny.  I  had  been  led 
from  Pomerania,  a  most  remote  place  if  measured 
by  its  distance  from  the  Medway,  in  order  to  stand 
at  evening  with  damp  feet  on  this  exact  spot.  A 
believer,  you  will  cry,  in  predestination  ?  Perhaps. 
Anyhow,  filled  with  these  reflections  (and  others 
of  the  same  character)  and  watching  my  wife  doing 
in  silence  that  for  which  she  is  fitted  and  intended, 
my  feeling  toward  her  became  softer;  I  began  to 
excuse;  to  relent;  to  forgive.  Indeed  I  have 
tried  to  do  my  duty.  I  am  not  hard,  unless  she 
forces  me  to  be.  I  feel  that  no  one  can  guide  and 
help  a  wife  except  a  husband.  And  I  am  older 
than  she  is;  and  am  I  not  experienced  in  wives, 
who  have  had  two,  and  one  of  them  for  the  enor- 
mous (sometimes  it  used  to  seem  endless)  period 
of  twenty  years  ? 

I  said  nothing  to  her  at  the  moment  of  a  softer 


146  THE  CARAVANERS 

nature,  being  w€ll  aware  of  the  advantage  of  allow- 
ing time,  before  proceeding  to  forgiveness,  for  the 
firmer  attitude  to  sink  in;  and  Jellaby  bringing 
the  iron  stew-pot  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  had  bought 
that  morning  —  or  rather  dragging  it,  for  he  is,  as 
I  have  said,  a  weedy  creature  —  across  to  us,  spill- 
ing much  of  the  water  it  contained  on  the  way,  I 
was  obliged  to  help  him  get  it  on  to  the  fire,  fetch- 
ing at  his  direction  stones  to  support  it  and  then 
considerably  scorching  my  hands  in  the  efforts  to 
settle  the  thing  safely  on  the  stones. 

"Please  don't  bother.  Baroness,"  said  Jellaby 
to  Edelgard  when  she  began  to  replenish  the  fire 
with  more  sticks.  "We'll  do  that.  You'll  get 
the  smoke  in  your  eyes." 

But  would  we  not  get  the  smoke  in  our  eyes  too  .? 
And  would  not  eyes  unused  to  kitchen  work 
smart  far  more  than  eyes  that  did  the  kind  of  thing 
at  home  every  day  ?  For  I  suppose  the  fires  in  the 
kitchen  of  Storchwerder  smoke  sometimes,  and 
Edelgard  must  have  been  perfectly  inured  to  it. 

"Oh,"  said  Edelgard,  in  the  pleasant  little  voice 
she  manages  to  have  when  speaking  to  persons 
who  are  not  her  husband,  "it  is  no  bother.  I  do 
not  mind  the  smoke." 

"Why,  what  are  we  here  for.?"  said  Jellaby. 
And  he  took  the  sticks  she  was  still  holding  from 
her  hands. 

Again  the  thought  crossed  my  mind  that  Jellaby 


THE  CARAVANERS  147 

must  be  attracted  by  Edelgard;  indeed,  all  three 
gentlemen.  This  is  an  example  of  the  sort  of 
attention  that  had  been  lavished  on  her  ever  since 
we  started.  Inconceivable  as  it  seemed,  there  it 
was;  and  the  most  inconceivable  part  of  it  was  that 
it  was  boldly  done  in  the  very  presence  of  her 
husband.  I,  however,  knowing  that  one  should 
never  trust  a  foreigner,  determined  to  bring  round 
the  talk,  as  I  had  decided  the  day  before,  to  the 
number  of  Edelgard's  birthdays  that  very  evening 
at  supper. 

But  when  supper,  after  an  hour  and  a  half's 
waiting,  came,  I  was  too  much  exhausted  to  care. 
We  all  were  very  silent.  Our  remaining  strength 
had  gone  out  of  us  like  a  flickering  candle  in  a 
wind  when  we  became  aware  of  the  really  endless 
time  the  potatoes  take  to  boil.  Everything  had 
gone  into  the  pot  together.  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh 
had  declared  that  was  the  shortest,  and  indeed  the 
only  way,  for  the  oil-stoves  in  the  caravans  and 
their  small  saucepans  had  sufficiently  proved  their 
inadequacy  the  previous  night.  Henceforth,  said 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  our  hope  was  to  be  in  the 
stew-pot;  and  as  she  said  it  she  threw  in  the 
potatoes,  the  cabbages,  the  onion  sliced  by  her 
tender  sister,  a  piece  of  butter,  a  handful  of  salt, 
and  the  bacon  her  husband  and  Lord  Sigismund 
had  brought  back  with  them  from  the  village.  It 
all  went  in  together;   but  it  did  not  all  come  out 


148  THE  CARAVANERS 

together,  for  we  discovered  after  savoury  fragrances 
had  teased  our  nostrils  for  some  time  that  the 
cabbage  and  the  bacon  were  cooked,  while  the 
potatoes,  in  response  to  the  proddings  of  divers 
anxious  forks,  remained  obstinately  hard. 

We  held  a  short  council,  gathered  round  the 
stew-pot,  as  to  the  best  course  to  pursue.  If  we 
left  the  bacon  and  the  cabbage  in  the  pot  they 
would  be  boiled  certainly  to  a  pulp,  and  perhaps 
—  awful  thought  —  altogether  away,  before  the 
potatoes  were  ready.  ,  On  the  other  hand,  to  relin- 
quish the  potatoes,  the  chief  feature  of  our  supper, 
would  be  impossible.  We  therefore,  after  much 
anxious  argument,  decided  to  take  out  that  which 
was  already  cooked,  put  it  carefully  on  plates,  and 
at  the  last  moment  return  it  to  the  pot  to  be 
warmed  up  again. 

This  was  done,  and  we  sat  round  on  the  grass 
to  wait.  Now  was  the  moment,  now  that  we  were 
all  assembled  silent  in  a  circle,  to  direct  the  con- 
versation into  the  birthday  channel,  but  I  found 
myself  so  much  enfeebled  and  the  rest  so  unrespon- 
sive that  after  a  faltering  beginning,  which  had  no 
effect  except  to  draw  a  few  languid  gazes  upon  me, 
I  was  obliged  perforce  to  put  it  off.  Indeed,  our 
thoughts  were  wholly  concentrated  on  food;  and 
looking  back  it  is  almost  incredible  to  me  that  that 
meagre  supper  should  have  roused  so  eager  an 
interest. 


THE  CARAVANERS  149 

We  all  sat  without  speaking,  listening  to  the 
bubbling  of  the  pot.  Now  and  then  one  of  the 
young  men  thrust  more  sticks  beneath  it.  The  sun 
had  set  long  since,  and  the  wind  had  dropped. 
The  meadow  seemed  to  grow  much  damper,  and 
while  our  faces  were  being  scorched  by  the  fire  our 
backs  were  becoming  steadily  more  chilly.  The 
ladies  drew  their  wraps  about  them.  The  gentle- 
men did  that  for  their  comfort  which  they  would 
not  do  for  politeness,  and  put  on  their  coats.  I 
whose  coat  had  never  left  me,  fetched  my  mackin- 
tosh and  hung  it  over  my  shoulders,  careful  to 
keep  it  as  much  as  possible  out  of  reach  of  the 
fire-glow  in  case  it  should  begin  to  melt. 

Long  before,  the  ladies  had  spread  the  tables 
and  cut  piles  of  bread  and  butter,  and  one  of  them 
—  I  expect  it  was  Frau  von  Eckthum  —  had  con- 
cocted an  uncooked  pudding  out  of  some  cakes 
they  alluded  to  as  sponge,  with  some  cream  and 
raspberry  jam  and  brandy,  which,  together  with 
the  bacon  and  excepting  the  brandy,  were  the 
result  of  the  foraging  expedition. 

Toward  these  tables  our  glances  often  wan- 
dered. We  were  but  human,  and  presently, 
overcome,  our  bodies  wandered  thither  too. 

We  ate  the  bread  and  butter. 

Then  we  ate  the  bacon  and  cabbage,  agreeing 
that  it  was  a  pity  to  let  it  get  any  cooler. 

Then  we  ate  the  pudding  they  spoke  of  —  for 


150  THE  CARAVANERS 

after  this  they  began  to  be  able  to  speak  —  as 
a  trifle. 

And  then  —  and  it  is  as  strange  to  relate  as  it 
is  difficuh  to  beHeve  —  we  returned  to  the  stew-pot 
and  ate  every  one  of  the  now  ready  and  steaming 
hot  potatoes;  and  never,  I  can  safely  say,  was 
there  anything  so  excellent. 

Later  on,  entering  our  caravan  much  softened 
by  these  various  experiences  and  by  a  cup  of 
extremely  good  coff^ee  made  by  Edelgard,  but  feel- 
ing justified  in  withdrawing,  now  that  darkness  had 
set  in,  from  the  confusions  of  the  washing  up,  I 
found  my  wife  searching  in  the  depths  of  the  yellow 
box  for  dishcloths. 

I  stood  in  the  narrow  gangway  lighting  a  cigar, 
and  when  I  had  done  lighting  it  I  realized  that  I 
was  close  to  her  and  alone.  One  is  never  at  any 
time  far  from  anything  in  these  vehicles,  but  on 
this  occasion  the  nearness  combined  with  the 
privacy  suggested  that  the  moment  had  arrived  for 
the  words  I  had  decided  she  must  hear  —  kind 
words,  not  hard  as  I  had  at  first  intended,  but 
needful. 

I  put  out  my  arm,  therefore,  and  proposed  to 
draw  her  toward  me  as  a  preliminary  to  peace. 

She  would  not,  however,  come. 

Greatly  surprised  —  for  resentment  had  not 
till  then  been  one  of  her  failings  —  I  opened 
my   mouth   to  speak,   but   she,   before  I   could 


THE  CARAVANERS  151 

do  so,  said,  "Do  you  mind  not  smoking  inside 
the  caravan  ? " 

Still  more  surprised,  and  indeed  amazed  (for 
this  was  petty)  but  determined  not  to  be  shaken 
out  of  my  kindness,  I  gently  began,  **  Dear  wife 
"and  was  going  on  when  she  interrupted  me. 

"Dear  husband,"  she  said;^  actually  imitating 
me,  "  I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say.  I  always 
know  what  you  are  going  to  say.  I  know  all  the 
things  you  ever  can  or  ever  do  say." 

She  paused  a  moment,  and  then  added  in  a  firm 
voice,  looking  me  straight  in  the  eyes,  "  By  heart." 

And  before  I  could  in  any  way  recover  my 
presence  of  mind  she  was  through  the  curtain  and 
down  the  ladder  and  had  vanished  with  the  dish- 
cloths in  the  darkness. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THIS  was  rebellion. 
But  unconsciousness  supervened  before 
I  had  had  time  to  consider  how  best  to  meet  it, 
the  unconsciousness  of  the  profound  and  pro- 
longed sleep  which  is  the  portion  of  caravaners. 
I  fell  into  it  almost  immediately  after  her  depar- 
ture, dropping  into  my  berth,  a  mere  worn-out 
collection  of  aching  and  presently  oblivious  bones, 
and  remaining  in  that  condition  till  she  had  left 
the  Elsa  next  morning. 

Therefore  I  had  little  time  for  reflection  on 
the  new  side  of  her  nature  the  English  atmosphere 
was  bringing  out,  nor  did  I  all  that  day  find  either 
the  leisure  or  the  privacy  necessary  for  it.  I  felt, 
indeed,  as  I  walked  by  my  horse  along  roads  broad 
and  roads  narrow,  roads  straight  and  roads  wind- 
ing, roads  flat  and  convenient  and  roads  hilly  and 
tiresome,  my  eyes  fixed  principally  on  the  ground, 
for  if  I  looked  up  there  were  only  hedges  and  in 
front  of  me  only  the  broad  back  of  the  Ailsa 
blocking  up  any  view  there  might  be,  I  felt  a 
numb  sensation  stealing  over  me,  a  kind  of  dull 
patience,  such  as  I  have  observed  (for  I  see  most 

152 


THE  CARAVANERS  153 

things)  to  be  the  leading  characteristic  of  a  team 
of  oxen,  a  tendency  becoming  more  marked  with 
every  mile  toward  the  merely  bovine. 

The  weather  that  day  was  disagreeable.  There 
was  a  high  wind  and  a  leaden  sky  and  the  dust 
blew  hard  and  gritty.  When,  on  rising,  I  peeped 
out  between  the  window  curtains,  it  all  looked 
very  cold  and  wretched,  the  Medway  —  a  most 
surly  river  —  muddier  than  ever,  the  leaves  of 
the  willow  trees  wildly  fluttering  and  showing 
their  gray  undersides.  It  seemed  difficult  to 
believe  that  one  was  really  there,  really  about 
to  go  out  into  that  gloom  to  breakfast  instead  of 
into  a  normal  dining-room  with  a  stove  and  a 
newspaper.  But,  on  emerging,  I  found  that 
though  it  looked  so  cold  it  was  not  intolerably 
so,  and  no  rain  in  the  night  had,  by  drenching  the 
long  grass,  added  to  our  agonies. 

They  were  all  at  breakfast  beneath  the  willows, 
holding  on  their  hats  with  one  hand  and  endeavour- 
ing to  eat  with  the  other,  and  they  all  seemed  very 
cheerful.  Edelgard,  who  had  taken  the  coffee 
under  her  management,  was  going  round  replenish- 
ing the  cups,  and  was  actually  laughing  when  I 
came  out  at  something  some  one  had  just  said. 
Remembering  how  we  parted  this  struck  me  as 
at  least  strange. 

I  made  a  point  of  at  once  asking  for  porridge, 
but  luckily  old  James  had  not  brought  the  milk 


154  THE  CARAVANERS 

in  time,  so  there  was  none.  Spared,  I  ate  corned 
beef  and  jam,  but  my  feet  were  still  sore  from  the 
previous  day's  march,  and  I  was  unable  to  enjoy 
it  very  much.  The  tablecloth  flapped  in  my  face, 
and  my  mackintosh  blew  almost  into  the  river 
when  I  let  it  go  for  an  instant  in  order  to  grasp  the 
milk  jug,  and  I  must  say  I  could  not  quite  under- 
stand why  they  should  all  be  so  happy.  I  trust  I 
am  as  willing  to  be  amused  as  any  man,  but  what 
is  there  amusing  in  breakfasting  in  a  draughty 
meadow  with  everything  flapping  and  fluttering, 
and  the  coff^ee  cold  before  it  reaches  one's  mouth  ? 
Yet  they  were  happy.  Even  Menzies-Legh,  a 
gray-haired,  badly-preserved  man,  older  a  good 
deal,  I  should  say,  than  I  am,  was  joking  and 
then  laughing  at  his  jokes  with  the  fledglings, 
and  Lord  Sigismund  and  Jellaby  were  describing 
almost  with  exultation  how  brisk  they  had  felt 
after  a  bath  they  had  taken  at  five  in  the  morning 
in  the  Medway. 

What  a  place  to  be  in  at  five  in  the  morning. 
I  shivered  only  to  hear  of  it.  Well,  that  which 
makes  one  man  brisk  is  the  undoing  of  another, 
and  a  bath  in  that  cold,  unfriendly  stream  would 
undoubtedly  have  undone  me.  I  could  only  con- 
clude that,  pasty  and  loosely  put  together  as  they 
outwardly  were,  they  must  be  of  a  very  great  secret 
leatheriness. 

This  surprised  me.     Not  that  Jellaby   should 


THE  CARAVANERS  155 

be  leathery,  for  if  he  were  not  neither  would  he 
be  a  Socialist;  but  that  the  son  of  so  noble  a 
house  as  the  house  of  Hereford  should  have  any- 
thing but  the  thinnest,  most  sensitive  of  skins, 
really  was  astonishing.  No  doubt,  however.  Lord 
Sigismlind  combined,  like  the  racehorse  of  purest 
breed,  a  skin  thin  as  a  woman's  with  a  mettle  and 
spirit  nothing  could  daunt.  Nothing  was  daunting 
him  that  morning,  that  was  very  clear,  for  he  sat 
at  the  end  of  the  table  shedding  such  contented 
beams  through  his  spectacles  on  the  company  and 
on  the  food  that  it  was  as  if,  unconsciously  true  to 
his  future  calling,  he  was  saying  a  continual  grace. 

I  think  they  must  all  have  been  up  very  early, 
for  except  the  cups  and  plates  actually  in  use 
everything  was  already  stowed  away.  Even  the 
tent  and  its  furniture  was  neatly  rolled  up  pre- 
paratory to  being  distributed  among  the  three 
caravans.  Such  activity,  after  the  previous  day, 
was  surprising;  and  still  more  so  was  the  circum- 
stance that  I  had  heard  nothing  of  the  attendant 
inevitable  bustle. 

"How  do  you  feel  this  morning?"  I  asked 
solicitously  of  Frau  von  Eckthum  on  meeting  her 
a  moment  alone  behind  her  larder;  I  hoped  she, 
at  least,  had  not  been  working  too  hard. 

**Oh,  very  well,"  said  she. 

"Not  too  weary?" 

"Not  weary  at  all." 


156  THE  CARAVANERS 

"Ah  —  youth,  youth,"  said  I,  shaking  my 
head  playfully,  for  indeed  she  looked  singularly 
attractive  that  morning. 

She  smiled,  and  mounting  the  steps  into  her 
caravan  began  to  do  things  with  a  duster  and 
to  sing. 

For  a  moment  I  wondered  whether  she  too 
had  been  made  brisk  by  early  contact  with  the 
Medway  (of  course  in  some  remoter  pool  or  bay), 
so  unusual  in  her  was  this  flow  of  language;  but 
the  idea  of  such  delicacy  being  enveloped  and 
perhaps  buffeted  by  that  rude  volume  of  muddy 
water  was,  I  felt,  an  impossible  one.  Still,  why 
should  she  feel  brisk.?  Had  she  not  walked  the 
day  before  the  entire  distance  in  the  dust?  Was 
it  possible  that  she  too,  in  spite  of  her  poetic 
exterior,  was  really  inwardly  leathery  ?  I  have  my 
ideals  about  women,  and  believe  there  is  much  of 
the  poet  concealed  somewhere  about  me;  and 
there  is  a  moonlight  intangibleness  about  this 
lady,  an  etherealism  amounting  at  times  almost 
to  indistinctness,  that  made  the  application  to 
her  of .  such  an  adjective  as  leathery  one  from 
which  I  shrank.  Yet  if  she  were  not,  how  could 
she  —  but  I  put  these  thoughts  resolutely  aside, 
and  began  to  prepare  for  our  departure,  mov- 
ing about  mechanically  as  one  in  a  bleak  and 
chilly  dream. 

That  is  a  hideous  bridge,  that  one  the  English 


THE  CARAVANERS  157 

have  built  themselves  across  the  Medway.  A 
great  gray-painted  iron  structure,  with  the  dusty 
highroad  running  over  it  and  the  dirty  river 
running  under  it.  I  hope  never  to  see  it  again, 
unless  officially  at  the  head  of  my  battalion.  On 
the  other  side  was  a  place  called  Paddock  Wood, 
also,  it  seemed  to  me,  a  dreary  thing  as  I  walked 
through  it  that  morning  at  my  horse's  side.  The 
sun  came  out  just  there,  and  the  wind  with  its 
consequent  dust  increased.  What  an  August, 
thought  I;  what  a  climate;  what  a  place.  An 
August  and  a  climate  and  a  place  only  to  be  found 
in  the  British  Isles.  In  Storchwerder  at  that 
moment  a  proper  harvest  mellowness  prevailed. 
No  doubt  also  in  Switzerland,  whither  we  so 
nearly  went,  and  certainly  in  Italy.  Was  this  a 
reasonable  way  of  celebrating  one's  silver  wedding, 
plodding  through  Paddock  Wood  with  no  one 
taking  any  notice  of  me,  not  even  she  who  was 
the  lawful  partner  of  the  celebration .?  The  only 
answer  I  got  as  I  put  the  question  to  myself  was 
a  mouthful  of  dust. 

Nobody  came  to  walk  with  me,  and  unless 
some  one  did  my  position  was  a  very  isolated  one, 
wedged  in  between  the  Ailsa  and  the  Ilsa,  unable 
to  leave  the  Elsa,  who,  like  a  wife,  immediately 
strayed  from  the  proper  road  if  I  did.  The  back 
of  the  Ailsa  prevented  my  seeing  who  was  with 
whom  in  front,  but  once  at  a  sharp  turning  I  did 


158  THE  CARAVANERS 

see,  and  what  I  saw  was  Frau  von  Eckthum  walk- 
ing with  Jellaby,  and  Edelgard  —  if  you  please  — 
on  his  other  side.  The  young  Socialist  was 
slouching  along  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and 
his  bony  shoulders  up  to  his  ears  listening,  appar- 
ently, to  Frau  von  Eckthum  who  actually  seemed 
to  be  talking,  for  he  kept  on  looking  at  her,  and 
laughing  as  though  at  the  things  she  said.  Edel- 
gard, I  noticed,  joined  in  the  laughter  as  uncon- 
cernedly as  if  she  had  nothing  in  the  world  to 
reproach  herself  with.  Then  the  Elsa  followed 
round  the  corner  and  the  scene  in  front  was  blotted 
out;  but  glancing  back  over  my  shoulder  I  saw 
how  respectably  Lord  Sigismund,  true  to  his 
lineage,  remained  by  the  Ilsa's  horse's  head, 
reflectively  smoking  his  pipe  and  accompanied 
only  by  his  dog. 

Beyond  Paddock  Wood  and  its  flat  and  dreary 
purlieus  the  road  began  to  ascend  and  to  wind, 
growing  narrower  and  less  draughty,  with  glimpses 
of  a  greener  country  and  a  hillier  distance,  in  fact 
improving  visibly  as  we  neared  Sussex.  All  this 
time  I  had  walked  by  myself,  and  I  was  still  too 
tired  after  the  long  march  the  day  before  to  have 
any  but  dull  objections.  It  would  have  been 
natural  to  be  acutely  indignant  at  Edelgard's  per- 
sistent defiance,  natural  to  be  infuriated  at  the 
cleverness  with  which  she  shifted  the  entire  charge 
of  our  caravan  on  to  me  while  she,  on  the  horizon. 


THE  CARAVANERS  159 

gesticulated  with  Jellaby.  I  realized,  it  is  true, 
that  the  others  would  not  have  let  her  lead  the 
horse  even  had  she  offered  to,  but  she  ought  at 
least  to  have  walked  beside  me  and  hear  me,  if  that 
were  my  mood,  grumble.  However,  a  reasonable 
man  knows  how  to  wait.  He  does  not,  not  being 
a  woman,  hasten  and  perhaps  spoil  a  crisis  by  rush- 
ing at  it.  And  if  no  opportunity  should  present 
itself  for  weeks,  would  there  not  be  years  in  our  flat 
in  Storchwerder  consisting  solely  of  opportunities  ? 

Besides,  my  feet  ached.  I  think  there  must 
have  been  some  clumsy  darning  of  Edelgard's 
in  my  socks  that  pressed  on  my  toes  and  made 
them  feel  as  if  the  shoes  were  too  short  for  them. 
And  small  stones  kept  on  getting  inside  them, 
finding  out  the  one  place  they  could  get  in  at 
and  leaping  through  it  with  the  greatest  dexterity, 
dropping  gradually  by  unpleasant  stages  down  to 
underneath  my  socks,  where  they  remained  causing 
me  discomfort  till  the  next  camp.  These  physical 
conditions,  to  which  the  endless  mechanical  trudg- 
ing behind  the  Ailsa's  varnished  back  must  be 
added,  reduced  me  as  I  said  before  to  a  condition 
of  dull  and  bovine  acquiescence.  I  ceased  to  make 
objections.     I  hardly  thought.     I  just  trudged. 

At  the  top  of  the  ascent,  at  a  junction  of  four 
roads  called  Four  Winds  (why,  when  they  were 
four  roads,  the  English  themselves  I  suppose  best 
know),  we  met  a  motor. 


i6o  THE  CARAVANERS 

It  came  scorching  round  a  corner  with  an 
insolent  shriek  of  its  tooting  apparatus,  but  the 
shriek  died  away  as  it  were  on  its  lips  when  it 
saw  what  was  filHng  up  the  way.  It  hesitated, 
stopped,  and  then  began  respectfully  to  back. 
Pass  us  it  could  not  at  that  point,  and  charge 
into  such  vast  objects  as  the  caravans  was  a  task 
before  which  even  bloodthirstiness  quailed.  I 
record  this  as  the  one  pleasing  incident  that 
morning,  and  when  it  was  my  turn  to  walk  by 
the  thing  I  did  so  with  squared  shoulders  and 
held-up  head  and  a  muttered  (yet  perfectly  dis- 
tinct) "Road  hogs"  —  which  is  the  term  Menzies- 
Legh  had  applied  to  them  the  day  before  when 
relating  how  one  had  run  over  a  woman  near 
where  he  lives,  and  had  continued  its  career,  leav- 
ing her  to  suffer  in  the  road,  which  she  did  for 
the  space  of  two  hours  before  the  next  passer-by 
passed  in  time  to  see  her  die.  And  she  was  a 
quite  young  woman,  and  a  pretty  one  into  the 
bargain. 

("I  don't  see  what  that  has  to  do  with  it," 
said  the  foolish  Jellaby  when,  in  answer  to  my 
questions,  I  extracted  this  information  from 
Menzies-Legh.) 

Therefore,  remembering  this  shocking  affair, 
and  being  as  well  a  great  personal  detester  of  these 
conveyances,  the  property  invariably  of  the  insolent 
rich,  who  with  us  are  chiefly  Jews,  I  took  care  to 


THE  CARAVANERS  i6i 

be  distinct  as  I  muttered  "  Road  hogs."  The  two 
occupants  in  goggles  undoubtedly  heard  me,  for 
they  started  and  even  their  goggles  seemed  to 
shrink  back  and  be  ashamed  of  themselves,  and  I 
continued  my  way  with  a  slight  reviving  of  my 
spirits,  the  slight  reviving  of  which  he  is  generally 
conscious  who  has  had  the  courage  to  say  what  he 
thinks  of  a  bad  thing. 

The  post  whose  finger  we  were  following  had 
Dundale  inscribed  on  it,  and  as  we  wound  down- 
ward the  scenery  considerably  improved.  Woods 
on  our  left  sheltered  us  from  the  wind,  and  on 
our  right  were  a  number  of  pretty  hills.  At  the 
bottom  —  a  bottom  only  reached  after  care  and 
exertion,  for  loose  stones  imperilled  the  safety  of 
my  horse's  knees,  and  I  had  besides  to  spring  about 
applying  and  regulating  the  brake  —  we  found  a 
farm  with  a  hop-kiln  in  the  hollow  on  the  left,  and 
opposite  it  a  convenient,  indeed  attractive,  field. 

No  other  house  was  near.  No  populace.  No 
iron  bridge.  No  donkeys.  No  barrel-organ. 
Stretches  of  corn,  so  ripe  that  though  the  sky  had 
clouded  over  they  looked  as  if  the  sun  were  shining 
on  them,  alternated  very  pleasantly  with  the  green 
of  the  hop-fields,  and  portions  of  woods  climbed  up 
between  the  folds  of  the  hills.  It  was  a  sheltered 
spot,  with  a  farm  capable  no  doubt  of  supplying 
food,  but  I  feared  that  because  it  was  only  one 
o'clock  my  pedantic  companions,  in  defiance  of 


i62  THE  CARAVANERS 

the  previous  day's  experience,  would  decline  to 
camp.  Taking  therefore  the  law  into  my  own 
hands  I  pulled  up  my  caravan  in  front  of  the  farm 
gate.  The  Ilsa  behind  me  was  forced  to  pull  up 
too;  and  the  Ailsa,  in  the  very  act  of  lumbering 
round  the  next  corner,  was  arrested  by  my  loud 
and  masterful  Brrr. 

"Anything  wrong?"  asked  Lord  Sigismund, 
running  up  from  the  back. 

"What  is  it.?'*  asked  Menzies-Legh,  coming 
toward  me  from  the  front. 

Strange  to  say  they  listened  to  reason;  and 
yet  not  strange,  for  I  have  observed  that  whenever 
one  makes  up  one's  mind  beforehand  and  unshak- 
ably  other  people  give  in.  One  must  know  what 
one  wants  —  that  is  the  whole  secret;  and  in  a 
world  of  flux  and  shilly-shally  the  infrequent  rock 
is  the  only  person  who  really  gets  it. 

Jellaby  (who  seemed  to  think  he  was  irresistible) 
volunteered  to  go  to  the  farmer  and  get  permission 
to  camp  in  the  field,  and  I  was  pleased  to  see 
that  he  made  so  doubtful  an  impression  that  the 
man  came  back  with  him  before  granting  anything, 
to  find  out  whether  the  party  belonging  to  this 
odd  emissary  were  respectable.  I  dare  say  he 
would  have  decided  that  we  were  not  had  he  only 
seen  the  others,  for  the  gentlemen  were  in  their 
shirt  sleeves  again;  but  when  he  saw  me,  well 
and  completely  dressed,  he  had  no  further  hesita- 


THE  CARAVANERS  163 

tions.  Readily  he  let  us  use  the  field,  recommend- 
ing a  certain  lower  portion  of  it  on  account  of  the 
nearness  of  the  water,  and  then  he  prepared  to  go 
back  and,  as  he  said,  finish  his  dinner. 

But  we,  who  wanted  dinner  too,  could  not  be 
content  with  nothing  more  filling  than  a  field, 
and  began  almost  with  one  voice  to  talk  to  him 
of  poultry. 

He  said  he  had  none. 

Of  eggs. 

He  said  he  had  none. 

Of  (anxiously)  butter. 

He  said  he  had  none.  And  he  scratched  his 
head  and  looked  unintelligent  for  a  space,  and 
then  repeating  that  about  finishing  his  dinner 
turned  away. 

I  went  with  him. 

"Take  the  caravans  into  the  field  and  I  will 
forage,"  I  called  back,  waving  my  hand;  for  the 
idea  of  accompanying  a  man  who  was  going  to 
finish  his  dinner  exhilarated  me  into  further 
masterfulness. 

My  rapid  calculation  was,  as  I  kept  step  with 
him,  he  looking  at  me  sideways,  that  though  it  was 
very  likely  true  he  had  not  enough  for  ten  it  was 
equally  probable  that  he  had  plenty  for  one. 
Besides,  he  might  be  glad  to  let  an  interesting 
stranger  share  the  finishing  of  his  no  doubt  lonely 
meal. 


i64  THE  CARAVANERS 

In  the  short  transit  from  the  lane  to  his  back 
door  (the  front  door  was  choked  with  grass  and 
weeds)  I  chatted  agreeably  and  fluently  about  the 
butter  and  eggs  we  desired  to  buy,  adopting  the 
"Come,  come,  my  dear  fellow"  tone,  perhaps 
better  described  as  the  man  to  man  form  of  appeal. 

"Foreign?"  said  he,  after  I  had  thus  flowed 
on,  pausing  on  his  doorstep  as  though  intending 
to  part  from  me  at  that  point. 

"Yes,  and  proud  of  it,"  said  I,  lifting  my  hat 
to  my  distant  Fatherland. 

"Ah,"  said  he.     "No  accountin*   for  tastes." 

This  was  disappointing  after  I  had  thought 
we  were  getting  on.  Also  it  was  characteristically 
British.  I  would  at  once  have  resented  it  if  with 
the  opening  of  the  door  the  unfinished  dinner  had 
not,  in  the  form  of  a  most  appetizing  odour,  issued 
forth  to  within  reach  of  my  nostrils.  To  sit  in 
a  room  with  shut  windows  at  a  table  and  dine, 
without  preliminary  labours,  on  food  that  did  not 
get  cold  between  the  plate  and  one's  mouth,  seemed 
to  me  at  that  moment  a  lot  so  blessed  that  tears 
almost  came  into  my  eyes. 

"Do  you  never  have  —  guests?"  I  asked, 
faltering  but  hurried,  for  he  was  about  to  shut  the 
door  with  me  still  on  the  wrong  side  of  it. 

He  stared.  Red-faced  and  over  stout  his  very 
personal  safety  demanded  that  he  should  not  by 
himself  finish  that  dinner. 


THE  CARAVANERS  165 

"Guests  ?"  he  repeated  stupidly.  "No,  I  don't 
have  no  guests." 

"Poor  fellow/' said  I. 

"I  don't  know  about  poor  fellow,"  said  he, 
getting  redder. 

"Yes.  Poor  fellow.  And  poor  fellow  inas- 
much as  I  suppose  in  this  secluded  spot  there  are 
none  to  be  had,  and  so  you  are  prevented  from 
exercising  the  most  privileged  and  noble  of  rites."  v 

"Oh,  you're  one  of  them  Social  Democrats?" 

"Social  Democrats?"  I  echoed. 

"Them  chaps  that  go  about  talkin'  to  us  of 
rights,  and  wrongs  too,  till  we  all  get  mad  and 
discontented  —  which  is  pretty  well  all  we  ever  do 
get,"  he  added  with  a  chuckle  that  was  at  the  same 
time  scornful.     And  he  shut  the  door. 

Filled  with  the  certitude  that  I  had  been  mis- 
understood, and  that  if  only  he  could  be  made 
aware  that  he  had  one  of  the  aristocracy  of  the 
first  nation  in  the  world  on  his  step  willing  to  be 
his  guest  and  that  such  a  chance  would  never  in 
all  human  probability  occur  again  he  would  be  too 
delighted  to  welcome  me,  I  knocked  vigorously. 

"Let  me  in.  I  am  hungry.  You  do  not  know 
who  I  am,"  I  called  out. 

"Well,"  said  he,  opening  the  door  a  few  inches 
after  a  period  during  which  I  had  continued  knock- 
ing and  he,  as  I  could  hear,  had  moved  about  the 
room  inside,  "here's  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of 


i66  THE  CARAVANERS 

butter  for  you.  I  ain't  got  no  more.  It's  salt.  I 
ain't  got  no  fresh.  I  send  it  away  to  the  market 
as  soon  as  it's  made.  It'll  be  fourpence.  Tell 
your  party  they  can  pay  when  they  settle  for  the 
field." 

And  he  thrust  a  bit  of  soft  and  oily  butter 
lying  on  a  piece  of  paper  into  my  hand  and  shut 
the  door. 

"Man,"  I  cried  in  desperation,  rattling  the 
handle,  "you  do  not  know  who  I  am.  I  am  a 
gentleman  —  an  officer  —  a  nobleman " 

He  bolted  the  door. 

When  I  got  back  I  found  them  encamped  in 
a  corner  at  the  far  end  of  the  field,  as  close  into 
the  shelter  of  a  hedge  as  they  could  get,  and  my 
butter  was  greeted  with  a  shout  (led  by  Jellaby) 
of  laughter.  He  and  the  fledglings  at  once  started 
off  on  a  fresh  foraging  expedition,  on  my  advice 
in  another  direction,  but  all  they  bore  back  with 
them  was  the  promise,  from  another  farmer,  of 
chickens  next  morning  at  six,  and  what  is  the 
good  of  chickens  next  morning  at  six  ?  It 
was  my  turn  to  shout,  and  so  I  did,  but  I  seemed 
to  have  little  luck  with  my  merriment,  for  the 
others  were  never  merry  at  the  moment  that  I 
was,  and  I  shouted  alone. 

Jellaby,  pretending  he  did  not  know  why  I 
should,  looked  surprised  and  said  as  usual, 
"Hullo,  Baron,  enjoying  yourself?" 


THE  CARAVANERS  167 

"Of  course,"  said  I,  smartly  —  "is  not  that 
what  I  have  come  to  England  for?" 

We  dined  that  day  on  what  was  left  of  our 
bacon  and  some  potatoes  we  had  over.  An 
attempt  which  failed  was  made  to  fry  the  potatoes 
—  "as  a  pleasant  change,"  said  Lord  Sigismund 
good  humouredly  —  but  the  wind  was  so  high 
that  the  fire  could  not  be  brought  to  frying  pitch, 
so  about  three  o'clock  we  gave  it  up,  and  boiled 
them  and  ate  them  with  butter  and  the  bacon, 
which  was  for  some  reason  nobody  understood 
half  raw. 

That  was  a  bad  day.  I  hope  never  to  revisit 
Dundale.  The  field,  which  began  dry  and  short- 
grassed  at  the  top  of  the  slope,  was  every  bit  as 
deep  and  damp  by  the  time  it  got  down  to  the 
corner  we  were  obliged  to  camp  in  because  of  the 
wind  as  the  meadow  by  the  Medway  had  been. 
We  had  the  hedge  between  us  (theoretically)  and 
the  wind,  but  the  wind  took  no  notice  of  the  hedge. 
Also  we  had  a  black-looking  brook  of  sluggish 
movement  sunk  deep  below  some  alders  and 
brambles  at  our  side,  and  infested,  it  appeared, 
with  a  virulent  species  of  fly  or  other  animal,  for 
while  we  were  wondering  (at  least  I  was)  what 
we  were  going  to  do  to  pass  the  hours  before 
bed  time,  and  what  (if  any)  supper  there  would  be, 
and  reflecting  (at  least  I  was)  on  the  depressing 
size  and  greenness  of  the  field  and  on  the  way  the 


i68  THE  CARAVANERS 

threatening  clouds  hung  lower  and  lower  over  our 
heads,  the  fledgling  Jumps  appeared,  struggling  up 
from  the  brook  through  the  blackberry  bushes,  and 
crying  that  she  had  been  stung  by  some  beast  or 
beasts  unknown,  flung  herself  down  on  the  grass 
and  immediately  began  to  swell. 

Everybody  was  in  consternation,  and  I  must 
say  so  was  I,  for  I  have  never  seen  anything  to 
equal  the  rapidity  of  her  swelling.  Her  face  and 
hands  even  as  she  lay  there  became  covered  with 
large  red,  raised  blotches,  and  judging  from  her 
incoherent  remarks  the  same  thing  was  happening 
over  the  rest  of  her.  It  occurred  to  me  that  if  she 
could  not  soon  be  stopped  from  further  swelling 
the  very  worst  thing  might  be  anticipated,  and  I 
expressed  my  fears  to  Menzies-Legh. 

"Nonsense,"  said  he,  quite  sharply;  but  I 
overlooked  it  because  he  was  obviously  in  his  heart 
thinking  the  same  thing. 

They  got  her  into  the  Ilsa  and  put  her,  I  was 
informed,  to  bed;  and  presently,  just  as  I  was 
expecting  to  be  scattered  with  the  other  gentlemen 
in  all  directions  in  search  of  a  doctor,  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  appeared  in  the  doorway  and  said  that 
Jumps  had  been  able  to  gasp  out,  between  her 
wild  scratchings,  that  when  anything  stung  her 
she  always  swelled,  and  the  only  thing  to  do  was 
to  let  her  scratch  undisturbed  until  such  time  as 
she  should  contract  to  her  ordinary  size  again. 


THE  CARAVANERS  169 

Immensely  relieved,  for  a  search  for  a  doctor 
in  hedges  and  ditches  would  surely  have  been  a 
thing  of  little  profit  and  much  fatigue,  I  sat  down 
in  one  of  the  only  three  chairs  that  were  at  all 
comfortable  and  spent  the  rest  of  the  afternoon  in 
fitful  argument  with  Jellaby  as  he  came  and  went, 
and  in  sustained,  and  not,  I  trust,  unsuccessful 
efforts  to  establish  my  friendship  with  Lord  Sigis- 
mund  on  such  a  footing  that  an  invitation  to 
meet  his  Serene  Aunt,  the  Princess  of  Grossburg- 
Niederhausen,  would  be  the  harmonious  result. 

The  ladies  were  busied  devising  methods  for 
the  more  rapid  relief  of  the  unhappy  and  still 
obstinately  swollen  fledgling. 

There  was  no  supper  except  ginger-biscuits. 

"You  can't  expect  it,"  said  Edelgard,  when  I 
asked  her  (very  distantly)  about  it,  "with  sickness 
in  the  house." 

"  What  house  I "    I  retorted,  pardonably  snappy. 

I  hope  never  to  revisit  Dundale. 


CHAPTER  X 

LET  me  earnestly  urge  any  of  my  hearers  who 
^  may  be  fired  by  my  example  to  follow  it, 
never  to  go  to  Dundale.  It  is  a  desolate  place, 
and  a  hungry  place;  and  a  place,  moreover, 
greatly  subject  to  becoming  enveloped  in  a  sort  of 
universal  gray  cloud,  emitting  a  steady  though 
fine  drizzle  and  accounted  for  —  which  made  it 
none  the  less  wet  —  by  persons  who  knew  every- 
thing, like  Jellaby,  as  being  a  sea-mist. 

I  am  no  doubt  very  stupid,  and  therefore  was 
unable  to  understand  why  there  should  be  a  sea- 
mist  when  there  was  no  sea. 

"Well,  we're  in  Sussex  now  you  know,"  said 
Jellaby,  on  my  saying  something  of  the  sort  to  him. 

"Indeed,"  said  I  politely,  as  though  that 
explained  it;   but  of  course  it  did  not. 

Up  to  this  point  we  had  at  least,  since  the 
first  night,  been  dry.  Now  the  rain  began,  and 
caravaning  in  rain  is  an  experience  that  must  be 
met  with  one's  entire  stock  of  fortitude  and 
philosophy.  This  stock,  however  large  origin- 
ally, has  a  tendency  to  give  out  after  drops  have 
trickled  down  inside  one's  collar  for  some  hours. 

170 


THE  CARAVANERS  171 

At  the  other  end,  too,  the  wet  ascends  higher 
and  higher,  for  is  not  one  wading  about  in  long 
and  soaking  grass,  trying  to  perform  one*s  (so 
to  speak)  household  duties  f  And  if,  when  the 
ascending  wet  and  the  descending  wet  meet,  and 
the  whole  man  is  a  mere  and  very  unhappy  sponge, 
he  can  still  use  such  words  as  healthy  and  jolly, 
then  I  say  that  that  man  is  either  a  philosopher 
indeed,  worthy  of  and  ripe  for  an  immediate  tub, 
or  he  is  a  liar  and  a  hypocrite.  I  heard  both 
those  adjectives  often  that  day,  and  silently 
divided  their  users  into  the  proper  categories. 
For  myself  I  preferred  to  say  nothing,  thus  pro- 
ducing private  flowers  of  stoicism  in  response  to 
the  action  of  the  rain. 

For  the  first  time  I  was  glad  to  walk,  glad  to 
move  on,  glad  of  anything  that  was  not  helping 
dripping  ladies  to  pack  up  dripping  breakfast 
things  beneath  the  dripping  umbrella  that  with 
studious  gallantry  I  endeavoured  to  hold  the 
while  over  my  and  their  dripping  heads.  How- 
ever healthy  and  jolly  the  wet  might  be  it 
undoubtedly  made  the  company  more  silent 
than  the  dry,  and  our  resumed  march  was 
almost  entirely  without  conversation.  We  moved 
on  in  a  southwesterly  direction,  the  diseased 
fledgling  still  in  bed  and  still,  I  was  credibly 
informed,  scratching,  through  pine  woods  full 
of  wet   bracken   and    deep   gloom   and    drizzle. 


172  THE  CARAVANERS 

till  at  a  place  called  Frant  we  turned  off  due 
south  in  response  to  some  unaccountable  impulse 
of  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh's,  whose  unaccountable 
impulses  were  the  capricious  rudder  which  swayed 
us  hither  and  thither  during  the  entire  tour. 

She  used  to  study  maps,  and  walk  with  one 
under  her  arm  out  of  which  she  read  aloud  the 
names  of  the  places  we  were  supposed  to  be  at; 
and  just  as  we  had  settled  down  to  believe  it 
we  would  come  to  some  flatly  contradictory  sign- 
post which  talked  of  quite  different  places,  places 
we  had  been  told  were  remote  and  in  an  alto- 
gether different  direction. 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  she  would  say,  with  a 
smile  in  which  I,  at  least,  never  joined,  for  I  have 
my  own  opinions  of  petticoat  government  —  "the 
great  thing  is  to  go  on." 

So  we  went  on;  and  it  was  she  who  made  us 
suddenly  turn  off  southward  after  Frant,  leaving 
a  fairly  comfortable  highroad  for  the  vicissitudes 
of  narrow  and  hilly  lanes. 

"Lanes,"  said  she,  "are  infinitely  prettier." 

I  dare  say.  They  are  also  generally  hillier, 
and  so  narrow  that  once  a  caravan  is  in  one  on 
it  has  to  go  whatever  happens,  trusting  to  luck 
not  to  meet  anything  else  on  wheels  till  it  reaches, 
after  many  anxieties,  the  haven  of  another  high- 
road. This  lane  ran  deep  between  towering 
hedges  and  did  not  leave  off  again  for  five  miles. 


THE  CARAVANERS  173 

and  none  of  you  would  believe  how  long  it  took 
us  to  do  those  five  miles  because  none  of  you 
know  —  how  should  you  ?  —  what  the  getting  of 
caravans  up  hills  by  means  of  tracing  is.  We 
had,  thanks  to  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh's  desire  for 
the  pretty  (unsatisfied  I  am  glad  to  say  on  that 
occasion,  because  the  so-called  sea-mist  clung 
close  round  us  like  a  wet  gray  cloak)  —  we  had 
got  into  an  almost  mountainous  lane.  We  were 
tracing  the  whole  time,  dragging  each  caravan 
up  each  hill  in  turn,  leaving  it  solitary  at  the  top 
and  returning  with  all  three  horses  for  the  next 
one  left  meanwhile  at  the  bottom.  I  never  saw 
such  an  endless  succession  of  hills.  If  tracing 
does  not  teach  a  man  patience  what,  I  would  like 
to  know,  will  ? 

At  first,  on  finding  my  horse  removed  and 
harnessed  on  to  the  Ailsa,  I  thought  I  would  get 
inside  the  Elsa  and  stretch  myself  on  the  yellow 
box  and  wait  there  quietly  smoking  till  the 
horse  came  back  again;  but  I  found  Edelgard 
inside,  blocking  it  up  and  preparing  to  mend 
her  stockings. 

This  was  unpleasant,  for  I  had  hardly  spoken 
to  her,  and  then  only  with  the  chilliest  politeness, 
since  her  behaviour  on  the  evening  by  the  Med- 
way;  yet,  determined  to  be  master  in  my  own 
(so  to  speak)  house,  I  would  have  carried  out 
my  intention  if  Menzies-Legh's  voice,  which  I 


174  THE  CARAVANERS 

thought  had  gone  up  the  hill,  had  not  been  heard 
quite  close  outside  asking  where  I  was. 

I  warned  my  wife  by  means  of  a  hasty  enjoining 
finger  to  keep  silence. 

Will  it  be  believed  that  she  looked  at  me,  said 
**Why  should  you  not  help  ?"  opened  the  window, 
and  called  out  that  I  was  there  ? 

"Come  and  give  us  a  hand.  Baron,"  said 
Menzies-Legh  from  outside.  "It*s  a  very  stiff 
pull  —  we'll  have  to  push  behind  as  well,  and 
want  what  help  we've  got." 

"Certainly,"  said  I,  all  apparent  ready  bustle; 
but  I  shot  a  very  expressive  brief  glance  at  Edel- 
gard  as  I  went  out. 

She,  however,  pretended  to  be  absorbed  in 
her  sewing. 

"You  Sociahsts,"  said  I  to  Jellaby,  next  to 
whom  I  found  I  was  expected  to  push,  "do  not 
believe  in  marriage,  do  you  ? " 

"We  —  don't  —  believe  —  in  —  tyrants,"  he 
panted,  so  short  of  breath  that  I  stared  at  him,  I 
myself  having  quite  a  quantity  of  it;  besides, 
what  an  answer! 

I  shrugged  the  shoulder  nearest  him  and  con- 
tinued up  in  silence.  At  the  top  of  the  hill  he 
was  so  warm  and  breathless  that  he  could  not 
speak,  and  so  were  the  others,  while  I  was  perfectly 
cool  and  chatty. 

"Why,   gentlemen,"   I   remarked   banteringly, 


THE  CARAVANERS  175 

as  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  these  panters  watching 
them  wipe  their  heated  brows,  "you  are  scarcely 
what  is  known  as  in  training.'* 

**  But  you,  Baron— undoubtedly  are  — — '*  gasped 
Menzies-Legh.    "  You  are  —  absolutely  unruffled." 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  agreed  modestly,  "I  am  in  good 
condition.  We  always  are  in  our  army.  Ready 
at  any  moment  to " 

I  stopped,  for  I  had  been  on  the  verge  of  saying 
"eat  the  English,"  when  I  recollected  that  we  may 
not  inform  the  future  mouthfuls  of  their  fate. 

"Ready  to  go  in  and  win,"  finished  Lord 
Sigismund. 

"To  blow  up  Europe,"  said  Jellaby. 

"To  mobilize,"  said  Menzies-Legh.  "And  very 
right  and  proper." 

"Very  wrong  and  improper,"  said  Jellaby. 
"You  know,"  he  said,  turning  on  his  host  with 
all  the  combativeness  of  these  men  of  peace  (the 
only  really  calm  person  is  your  thoroughly  trained 
and  equipped  warrior)  —  "you  know  very  well 
you  agree  with  me  that  war  is  the  most 
unnecessary -" 

"Come,  come,  my  young  gentlemen,"  I  inter- 
posed, broadening  my  chest,  "do  not  forget 
that  you  are  in  the  presence  of  one  of  its  repre- 
sentatives  " 

"Let  us  fetch  up  the  next  caravan,"  inter- 
rupted Menzies-Legh,  thrusting  my  horse's  bridle 


176  THE  CARAVANERS 

into  my  hand;  and  as  I  led  it  down  the  hill  again 
my  anxiety  to  prevent  its  stumbling  and  costing 
me  heaven  knows  how  much  in  the  matter  of 
mending  its  knees  rendered  me  unable  for  the 
moment  to  continue  the  crushing  of  Jellaby. 

About  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  found 
ourselves,  drenched  and  hungry,  on  the  outskirts 
of  a  place  called  Wadhurst.  It  seemed  wise  to  go 
no  nearer  unless  we  were  prepared  to  continue  on 
through  it,  for  already  the  laurels  of  its  villa 
residences  dropped  their  rain  on  us  over  neat 
railings  as  we  passed.  We  therefore,  too  worn  out 
to  attempt  to  get  right  through  the  place  to  the 
country  beyond,  selected  the  first  possible  field  on 
the  left  of  the  brown  and  puddle-strewn  road,  a 
field  of  yellow  stubble  which,  soaking  as  it  was, 
was  yet  a  degree  less  soaking  than  long  grass, 
and  though  it  had  nothing  but  a  treeless  hedge 
to  divide  us  from  the  eyes  of  wanderers  along 
the  road  it  had  an  unusually  conveniently  placed 
gate.  The  importance  now  of  fields  and  gates! 
The  importance,  indeed,  of  everything  usually 
unimportant  —  which  is,  in  brief,  the  tragedy  of 
caravaning. 

This  time  the  Menzies-Leigh  couple  went  to 
find  the  owner  and  crave  permission.  So  reduced 
were  we  —  and  could  reduction  go  further .?  —  that 
to  crave,  hat  in  hand,  for  permission  to  occupy 
some  wretched  field  for  a  few  hours,  and  to  crave 


THE  CARAVANERS  177 

it  often  of  illiterate,  selfish,  and  grossly  greedy 
persons  like  my  friend  at  Dundale,  was  not  beneath 
any  of  our  prides,  while  to  obtain  it  seemed  the 
one  boon  worth  having. 

While  they  were  gone  we  waited,  a  melancholy 
string  of  vehicles  and  people  in  a  world  made  up 
of  mist  and  mud.  Frau  von  Eckthum,  who 
might  have  cheered  me,  had  been  invisible  nearly 
the  whole  day,  ministering  (no  doubt  angelically) 
to  the  afflicted  fledgling.  Edelgard  and  the  child 
Jane  got  into  the  Elsa  during  the  pause  and 
began  to  teach  each  other  languages.  I  leaned 
against  the  gate,  staring  before  me.  Old  James, 
a  figure  of  dripping  patience,  remained  at  his 
horse's  head.  And  Lord  Sigismund  and  Jellaby, 
as  though  they  had  not  had  enough  exercise, 
walked  up  and  down  the  road  talking. 

Except  the  sound  of  their  receding  and  advanc- 
ing footsteps  the  stillness  was  broken  by  nothing 
at  all.  It  was  a  noiseless  rain.  It  did  not  patter. 
And  yet,  fine  though  it  was,  it  streamed  down 
the  flanks  of  the  horses,  the  sides  of  the  caravans, 
and  actually  penetrated,  as  I  later  on  discovered, 
through  the  green  arras  lining  of  the  Elsa,  making 
a  long  black  streak  from  roof  to  floor. 

I  wonder  what  my  friends  at  home  would  have 
said  could  they  have  seen  me  then.  No  shelter; 
no  refuge;  no  rest.  These  three  negatives,  I  take 
it,  sum  up  fairly  accurately  a  holiday  in  a  caravan. 


178  THE  CARAVANERS 

You  cannot  get  in,  for  if  you  do  either  you  find 
it  full  already  of  your  wife,  or,  if  it  is  moving, 
Jellaby  immediately  springs  up  from  nowhere  and 
inquires  at  the  window  whether  you  have  noticed 
how  your  horse  is  sweating.  At  every  camp  there 
is  nothing  but  work  —  and  oh,  my  friends,  such 
work!  Work  undreamed  of  in  your  ordered 
lives,  and  nothing,  nothing  but  it,  for  must  you 
not  eat  ?  And  without  it  there  is  no  eating. 
And  then  when  you  have  eaten,  without  the  least 
pause,  the  least  interval  for  the  meditation  so  good 
after  meals,  there  begins  that  frightful  and  accursed 
form  of  activity,  most  frightful  and  accursed  of  all 
known  forms,  the  washing  up.  How  it  came 
about  that  it  was  not  from  the  first  left  to  the 
women  I  cannot  understand;  they  are  fitted  by 
nature  for  such  labour,  and  do  not  feel  it;  but  I, 
being  in  a  minority,  was  powerless  to  interfere. 
Nor  did  I  always  succeed  in  evading  it.  If  we 
camped  early,  the  daylight  exposed  my  move- 
ments; and  by  the  time  it  was  done  bed  seemed 
the  only  place  to  go  to.  Now  an  intelligent  man 
does  not  desire  to  go  to  bed  at  eight;  yet  in  that 
cold  weather  — -  we  were,  they  said,  unusually 
unfortunate  in  the  weather  —  even  if  it  was  dry, 
what  pleasure  was  there  in  sitting  out-of-doors  ?  I 
had  had  enough  during  the  day  of  out-of-doors;  by 
the  time  evening  came,  out-of-doors  and  fresh  air 
were  things  abhorrent  to  me.    And  there  were 


THE  CARAVANERS  179 

only  three  comfortable  chairs,  low  and  easy,  in 
which  a  man  might  stretch  himself  and  smoke, 
and  these,  without  so  much  as  a  preliminary 
offering  of  them  to  anybody  else,  were  sat  in  by 
the  ladies.  It  did  seem  a  turning  of  good  old 
customs  upside  down  when  I  saw  Edelgard  get 
into  one  as  a  matter  of  course,  so  indifferent  to 
what  I  might  be  thinking  that  she  did  not  even 
look  my  way.  How  vividly  on  such  occasions 
did  I  remember  my  easy  chair  at  Storchwerder 
and  how  sacred  it  was,  and  how  she  never  dared, 
if  I  were  in  the  house,  approach  it,  nor  I  firmly 
believe  ever  dared,  so  good  was  her  training  and 
so  great  her  respect,  approach  it  when  I  was  out. 

Well,  our  proverb  —  descriptive  of  a  German 
gentleman  about  to  start  on  his  (no  doubt)  well- 
deserved  holiday  travels  —  "  He  who  loves  his 
wife  leaves  her  at  home,"  is  as  wise  no.w  as 
the  day  it  was  written,  and  about  this  time  I 
began  to  see  that  by  having  made  my  bed  in 
a  manner  that  disregarded  it  I  was  going  to  have 
to  lie  on  it. 

The  Menzies-Leghs  returned  wreathed  in  smiles 
— •  I  beg  you  to  note  the  reason,  and  all  of  wretched- 
ness that  it  implies  —  because  the  owner  of  the 
field's  wife  had  not  been  rude,  and  had  together 
with  the  desired  permission  sold  them  two  pounds 
of  sausages,  the  cold  potatoes  left  from  her 
dinner,  a  jug  of   milk,  a  piece  of   butter,  and 


i8o  THE  CARAVANERS 

some  firewood.  Also  they  had  met  a  baker^s 
cart  and  had  bought  loaves. 

This,  of  course,  as  far  as  it  went,  was  satisfac- 
tory, especially  the  potatoes  that  neither  wanted 
peeling  nor  patience  while  they  grew  soft,  but  I 
submit  that  it  was  only  a  further  proof  of  our 
extreme  lowness  in  the  scale  of  well-cared-for 
humanity.  Here  in  my  own  home,  with  these 
events  in  what  Menzies-Legh  and  Jellaby  would 
have  called  the  blue  distance,  how  strange  it 
seems  that  just  sausages  and  cold  potatoes  should 
ever  have  been  able  to  move  me  to  exultation. 

We  at  once  got  into  the  field,  hugging  the 
hedge,  and  in  the  shelter  of  the  Ilsa  (which  entered 
last)  made  our  fire.  I  was  deputed  (owing  to  the 
unfortunate  circumstance  of  my  being  the  only 
person  who  had  brought  one)  to  hold  my  umbrella 
over  the  frying  pan  while  Jellaby  fried  the  sausages 
on  one  of  the  stoves.  It  was  not  what  I  would 
have  chosen,  for  while  protecting  the  sausages  I 
was  also,  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  the  contrary, 
protecting  Jellaby;  and  what  an  anomalous  posi- 
tion for  a  gentleman  of  birth  and  breeding  and 
filled  with  the  aristocratic  opinions,  and  perhaps 
(for  I  am  a  fair  man)  prejudices,  incident  to 
being  born  and  bred  —  well  born  of  course  I 
mean,  not  recognizing  any  other  form  of  birth — 
what  a  position,  to  stand  there  keeping  the  back 
of  a  British  SociaHst  dry! 


THE  CARAVANERS  i8i 

But  there  is  no  escaping  these  anomalies  if 
you  caravan;  they  crop  up  continually;  and 
however  much  you  try  to  dam  them  out,  the 
waters  of  awkwardly  familiar  situations  constantly 
break  through  and  set  all  your  finer  feelings  on 
edge.  Fain  would  I  have  let  the  rain  work  its 
will  on  Jellaby*s  back,  but  what  about  the 
sausages  ?  As  they  turned  and  twisted  in  the  pan, 
obedient  to  his  guiding  fork,  I  could  not  find  it  in 
me  to  let  a  drop  of  rain  mar  that  melodious  fizzling. 
So  I  stood  there  doing  my  best,  glad  at  least 
I  was  spared  being  compromised  owing  to  the 
absence  of  my  friends,  while  the  two  other  gentle- 
men warmed  up  the  potatoes  over  the  fire  pre- 
paratory to  converting  them  into  puree,  and  the 
ladies  in  the  caravans  were  employed,  judging  by 
the  fragrance,  in  making  coffee. 

In  spite  of  the  rain  a  small  crowd  had  collected 
and  was  leaning  on  the  gate.  Their  faces  were 
divided  between  wonder  and  pity;  but  this  was 
an  expression  we  had  now  got  used  to,  for  except 
on  fine  days  every  face  we  met  at  once  assumed  it, 
unless  the  face  belonged  to  a  little  boy,  when  it 
was  covered  instead  with  what  seemed  to  be  glee 
and  was  certainly  animation,  the  animation  being 
apparently  not  infrequently  inspired  by  a  train  of 
thought  which  led  up  to,  after  we  had  passed,  a 
calling  out  and  a  throwing  of  stones. 

"You'll    see    these    turn    brown    soon,"    said 


i82  THE  CARAVANERS 

Jellaby,  crouching  over  his  sausages  and  pursuing 

them  untiringly  round  and  round  the  pan  with 

a  fork. 
"Yes,"  said  I;  "and  a  pleasant  sight  too  when 

one  is  hungry." 
"By  Jove,  yes,"  said  he;    "caravaning  makes 

one  appreciate  things,  doesn't  it  ?" 
"Yes,"  said  I,  "whenever  there  are  any." 
In  silence  he  continued  to  pursue  with  his  fork. 
"They    are    very    pink,"    said    I,    after   some 

minutes. 
"Yes,"  said  he. 
"Do  you  think  so  much  —  such  unceasing  — 

exercise  is  good  for  them  ?" 
"Well,  but  I  must  get  them  brown  all  round." 
"They  are,  however,  still  altogether  pink." 
"Patience,  my  dear  Baron.     You'll  soon  see.*' 
I  watched  him  in  a  further  silence  of  some 

minutes. 

"Do  you,  Jellaby,"  I  then  inquired,  "really 

understand  how  best  to  treat  a  sausage?" 
"Oh,  yes;  they're  bound  to  turn  brown  soon." 
"But  see  how  obstinately  they  continue  pink. 

Would  it  not  be  wise,  considering  the  lateness,  to 

call  my  wife  and  desire  her  to  cook  them?" 
"What!    The  Baroness  in  this  wet  stubble?" 

said   he,  with   such   energy  that  I   deemed  the 

moment  come  for  the  striking  of  the  blow  that 

had  been  so  long  impending. 


Do  you,  Jellaby,"  I  then  inquired,  "  really  understand 
hozv  best  to  treat  a  sausage  f  " 


THE  CARAVANERS  183 

"When  a  lady,"  I  said  with  great  distinctness, 
"has  cooked  for  fourteen  years  without  interrup- 
tion —  ever  since,  that  is,  she  was  sixteen  —  one 
may  safely  at  thirty  leave  it  always  in  her  hands." 

"Monstrous,"  said  he. 

At  first  I  thought  he  was  in  some  way  alluding 
to  her  age,  and  to  the  fact  that  he  had  been  deceived 
into  supposing  her  young. 

"What  is  monstrous?"  I  inquired,  as  he  did 
not  add  anything. 

"Why  should  she  cook  for  us?  Why  should 
she  come  out  in  the  wet  to  cook  for  us  ?  Why 
should  any  woman  cook  for  fourteen  years  without 
interruption  ?" 

"She  did  it  joyfully,  Jellaby,  for  the  comfort 
and  sustenance  of  her  husband,  as  every  virtuous 
woman  ought." 

"I  think,"  said  he,  "it  would  choke  me." 

"What  would  choke  you  ?" 

"Food  produced  by  the  unceasing  labour  of 
my  wife.  Why  should  she  be  treated  as  a  servant 
when  she  gets  neither  wages  nor  the  privilege  of 
giving  notice  and  going  away?" 

"No  wages?  Her  wages,  young  gentleman, 
are  the  knowledge  that  she  has  done  her  duty  to 
her  husband." 

"Thin,  thin,"  he  murmured,  digging  his  fork 
into  the  nearest  sausage. 

"And  as  for  going  away,  I  must  say  I  am 


i84  THE  CARAVANERS 

surprised  you  should  connect  such  a  thought  with 
any  respectable  lady." 

Indeed,  what  he  said  was  so  ridiculous,  and  so 
young,  and  so  on  the  face  of  it  unmarried  that  in 
my  displeasure  I  moved  the  umbrella  for  a  moment 
far  enough  to  one  side  to  allow  the  larger  drops 
collected  on  its  metal  tips  to  fall  on  to  his  bent 
and  practically  coUarless  (he  wore  a  flannel  shirt 
with  some  loose  apology  for  a  collar  of  the  same 
material)  neck. 

"  Hullo,"  he  said,  "  you're  letting  the  sausages 
get  wet." 

"  You  talk,  Jellaby,"  I  resumed,  obliged  to 
hold  the  umbrella  on  its  original  position  again 
and  forcing  myself  to  speak  calmly,  **  in  great 
ignorance.  What  can  you  know  of  marriage  ^ 
Whereas  I  am  very  fully  qualified  to  speak,  for 
I  have  had,  as  you  may  not  perhaps  know,  the 
families  scheduled  in  the  Gotha  Almanack  being 
unlikely  to  come  within  the  range  of  your  acquaint- 
ance, two  wives." 

I  must  of  course  have  been  mistaken,  but  I 
did  fancy  I  heard  him  say,  partly  concealing  it 
under  his  breath,  "  God  help  them,"  and  naturally 
greatly  startled  I  said  very  stiffly,  "  I  beg  your 
pardon .? " 

But  he  only  mumbled  unintelligibly  over  his 
pan,  so  that  no  doubt  I  had  done  him  an  injustice; 
and  the  sausages  being,  as  he  said  (not  without  a 


THE  CARAVANERS  185 

note  of  defiance  in  his  voice),  ready,  which  meant 
that  for  some  reason  or  other  they  had  one  and 
all  come  out  of  their  skins  (which  lay  still  pink 
in  limp  and  lifeless  groups  about  the  pan),  and 
were  now  mere  masses  of  minced  meat,  he  rose  up 
from  his  crouching  attitude,  ladled  them  by  means 
of  a  spoon  into  a  dish,  requested  my  umbrella's 
continued  company,  and  proceeded  to  make  the 
round  of  caravans,  holding  them  up  at  each  window 
in  turn  while  the  ladies  helped  themselves  from 
within. 

"And  us  ?"  I  said  at  last,  for  when  he  had  been 
to  the  third  he  began  to  return  once  more  to  the 
first  — "and  us?" 

"Us  will  get  some  presently,"  he  replied  —  I 
cannot  think  grammatically  —  holding  up  the 
already  sadly  reduced  dish  at  the  Ilsa*s  window. 

Frau  von  Eckthum,  however,  smiled  and  shook 
her  head,  and  very  luckily  the  sick  fledgling,  so 
it  appeared,  still  turned  with  loathing  from  all 
nourishment.  Lord  Sigismund  was  following  us 
round  with  the  potato  puree,  and  in  return  for 
being  waited  on  in  this  manner,  a  manner  that 
can  only  be  described  as  hand  and  foot,  Edelgard 
deigned  to  give  us  cups  of  coflFee  through  her 
window  and  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  slices  of  buttered 
bread  through  hers. 

Perhaps  my  friends  will  have  noted  the  curious 
insistence  and  patience  with  which  we  drank  coffee. 


1 86  THE  CARAVANERS 

I  can  hear  them  say,  "Why  this  continuous 
coffee?'*  I  can  hear  them  also  inquire,  "Where 
was  the  wine,  then,  that  beverage  for  gentlemen, 
or  the  beer,  that  beverage  for  the  man  of  muscle 
and  marrow?" 

The  answer  to  that  is.  Nowhere.  None  of 
them  drank  anything  more  convivial  than  water 
or  that  strange  liquid,  seemingly  so  alert  and  full 
of  promise,  ginger-beer,  and  to  drink  alone  was 
not  quite  what  I  cared  for.  There  was  Frau  von 
Eckthum,  for  instance,  looking  on,  and  she  had 
very  early  in  the  tour  expressed  surprise  that 
anybody  should  ever  want  to  drink  what  she 
called  intoxicants. 

"My  dear  lady,"  I  had  protested  —  tenderly, 
though  —  "you  would  not  have  a  man  drink 
milk?" 

"Why  not?"  said  she;  but  even  when  she  is 
stupid  she  does  not  for  an  instant  cease  to  be 
attractive. 

On  the  march  I  often  could  make  up  for  abstin- 
ences in  between  by  going  inside  the  inns  outside 
which  the  gritless  others  lunched  on  bananas  and 
milk,  and  privately  drinking  an  honest  mug  of  beer. 

You,  my  friends,  will  naturally  inquire,  "Why 
privately  ? " 

Well,  I  was  in  the  minority,  a  position  that 
tends  to  take  the  kick,  at  least  the  open  kick^ 
out  of  a  man  —  in  fact,  since  my  wife's  desertion 


THE  CARAVANERS  187 

I  occupied  the  entire  minority  all  by  myself; 
then  I  am  a  considerate  man,  and  do  not  like 
to  go  against  the  grain  (other  people's  grain), 
remembering  how  much  I  feel  it  when  other 
people  go  against  mine;  and  finally  (and  this 
you  will  not  understand,  for  I  know  you  do  not 
like  her),  there  was  always  Frau  von  Eckthum 
looking  on. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THAT  night  the  rain  changed  its  character, 
threw  off  the  pretence  of  being  only  a  mist, 
and  poured  in  loud  cracking  drops  on  to  the  roof 
of  the  caravan.  It  made  such  a  noise  that  it 
actually  woke  me,  and  lighting  a  match  I  dis- 
covered that  it  was  three  o'clock  and  that  why  I 
had  had  an  unpleasant  dream  —  I  thought  I  was 
having  a  bath  —  was  that  the  wet  was  coming 
through  the  boarding  and  descending  in  slow  and 
regular  splashings  on  my  head. 

This  was  melancholy.  At  three  o'clock  a 
man  has  little  initiative,  and  I  was  unable  to 
think  of  putting  my  pillow  at  the  bottom 
of  the  bed  where  there  was  no  wet,  though  in 
the  morning,  when  I  found  Edelgard  had  done  so, 
it  instantly  occurred  to  me.  But  after  all  if  I 
had  thought  of  it  one  of  my  ends  was  bound  in 
any  case  to  get  wet,  and  though  my  head  would 
have  been  dry  my  feet  (if  doctors  are  to  be  believed 
far  more  sensitive  organs)  would  have  got  the 
splashings.  Besides,  I  was  not  altogether  help- 
less in  the  face  of  this  new  calamity:  after  shout- 
ing to  Edelgard  to  tell  her  I  was  awake  and, 

i88 


THE  CARAVANERS  189 

although  presumably  indoors,  yet  somehow  in  the 
rain  —  for  indeed  it  surprised  me  —  and  receiv- 
ing no  answer,  either  because  she  did  not  hear, 
owing  to  the  terrific  noise  on  the  roof,  or  because 
she  would  not  hear,  or  because  she  was  asleep,  I 
rose  and  fetched  my  sponge  bag  (a  new  and 
roomy  one),  emptied  it  of  its  contents,  and  placed 
my  head  inside  it  in  their  stead. 

I  submit  this  was  resourcefulness.  A  sponge 
bag  is  but  a  little  thing,  and  to  remember  it  is  also 
but  a  little  thing,  but  it  is  little  things  such  as  these 
that  have  won  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world 
and  are  the  finger-posts  to  the  qualities  in  a  man 
that  would  win  more  decisive  battles  if  only  he 
were  given  a  chance.  Many  a  great  general,  many 
a  great  victory,  have  been  lost  to  our  Empire 
owing  to  its  inability  to  see  the  promise  contained 
in  some  of  its  majors  and  its  consequent  dilatori- 
ness  in  properly  promoting  them. 

How  the  rain  rattled.  Even  through  the 
muffling  sponge  bag  I  could  hear  it.  The  thought 
of  Jellaby  in  his  watery  tent  on  such  a  night, 
gradually,  as  the  hours  went  on,  ceasing  to  lie 
and  beginning  to  float,  would  have  amused  me 
if  it  had  not  been  that  poor  Lord  Sigismund, 
nolens  volens,  must  needs  float  too. 

From  this  thought  I  somehow  got  back  to  my 
previous  ones,  and  the  longer  I  lay  wakeful  the 
more  pronouncedly  stern  did  they  become.     I  am 


igo  THE  CARAVANERS 

as  loyal  and  loving  a  son  of  the  Fatherland  as  it 
will  ever  in  all  human  probability  beget,  but  what 
son  after  a  proper  period  of  probation  does  not 
like  the  ring  on  the  finger,  the  finer  raiment,  the 
paternal  embrace,  and  the  invitation  to  dinner  ? 
In  other  words  (and  quitting  parable),  what  son 
after  having  served  his  time  among  such  husks  as 
majors  does  not  like  promotion  to  the  fatted  calves 
of  colonels  ?  For  some  time  past  I  have  been 
expecting  it  every  day,  and  if  it  is  not  soon  granted 
it  is  possible  that  my  patience  may  be  so  changed 
to  anger  that  I  shall  refuse  to  remain  at  my  post 
and  shall  send  in  my  resignation;  though  I  must 
say  I  should  like  a  hit  at  the  English  first. 

Once  embarked  on  these  reflections  I  could  not 
again  close  my  eyes,  and  lay  awake  for  the  remain- 
ing hours  of  the  night  with  as  great  a  din  going 
on  as  ever  I  heard  in  my  life.  I  have  described 
this  —  the  effect  of  heavy  rain  when  you  are  in 
a  caravan  —  in  that  portion  of  the  narrative  deal- 
ing with  the  night  on  Grip's  Common,  so  need  only 
repeat  that  it  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  a 
sharp  pelting  with  unusually  hard  stones.  Edel- 
gard,  if  she  did  indeed  sleep,  must  be  of  an  almost 
terrifying  toughness,  for  the  roof  on  which  this 
pelting  was  going  on  was  but  a  few  inches  from 
her  head. 

As  the  cold  dawn  crept  in  between  the  folds 
of  our  window-curtains  and  the  noise  had  in  no 


THE  CARAVANERS  191 

way  abated,  I  began  very  seriously  to  wonder 
how  I  could  possibly  get  up  and  go  out  and  eat 
breakfast  under  such  conditions.  There  was  my 
mackintosh,  and  I  also  had  galoshes,  but  I  could 
not  appear  before  Frau  von  Eckthum  in  the 
sponge  bag,  and  yet  that  was  the  only  sensible 
covering  for  my  head.  But  what  after  all  could 
galoshes  avail  in  such  a  flood  ?  The  stubble 
field,  I  felt,  could  be  nothing  by  then  but  a  lake; 
no  fire  could  live  in  it;  no  stove  but  would  be 
swamped.  Were  it  not  better,  if  such  was  to  be 
the  weather,  to  return  to  London,  take  rooms 
in  some  water-tight  boarding-house,  and  fre- 
quent the  dryness  of  museums  ?  Of  course  it 
would  be  better.  Better  ?  Must  not  anything 
in  the  world  be  better  than  that  which  is  the 
worst  ? 

But,  alas,  I  had  been  made  to  pay  beforehand 
for  the  Elsa,  and  had  taken  the  entire  responsi- 
bility for  her  and  her  horse's  safe  return  and 
even  if  I  could  bring  myself  to  throw  away  such 
a  sum  as  I  had  disbursed  one  cannot  leave  a 
caravan  lying  about  as  though  it  were  what  our 
neighbours  across  the  Vosges  call  a  mere  baga- 
telle. It  is  not  a  bagatelle.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  a  huge  and  complicated  mechanism  that  must 
go  with  you  like  the  shell  on  the  poor  snail's  back 
wherever  you  go.  There  is  no  escape  from  it, 
once  you  have  started,  day  or  night.     Where  was 


192  THE  CARAVANERS 

Panthers  by  now,  Panthers  with  its  kind  and  help- 
ful little  lady  ?  Heaven  alone  knew,  after  ail  our 
zigzagging.  Find  it  by  myself  I  certainly  could 
not,  for  not  only  had  we  zigzagged  in  obedience 
to  the  caprices  of  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  but  I  had 
walked  most  of  the  time  as  a  man  in  a  dream, 
heeding  nothing  particularly  except  my  growing 
desire  to  sit  down. 

I  wondered  grimly  as  six  o'clock  drew  near,  the 
hour  at  which  the  rest  of  the  company  usually  burst 
into  activity,  whether  there  would  be  many 
exclamations  of  healthy  and  jolly  that  day.  There 
is  a  point,  I  should  say,  at  which  a  thing  or  a  con- 
dition becomes  so  excessively  healthy  and  jolly 
that  it  ceases  to  be  either.  I  drew  the  curtain 
of  my  bunk  together  —  for  a  great  upheaval  over 
my  head  warned  me  that  my  wife  was  going  to 
descend  and  dress  —  and  feigned  slumber.  Sleep 
seemed  to  me  such  a  safe  thing.  You  cannot 
make  a  man  rise  and  do  what  you  consider  his 
duty  if  he  will  not  wake  up.  The  only  free  man, 
I  reflected  with  my  eyes  tightly  shut,  is  the  man 
who  is  asleep.  Pushing  my  reflection  a  little 
further  I  saw  with  a  slight  start  that  real  freedom 
and  independence  are  only,  then,  to  be  found  in 
the  unconscious  —  a  race  (or  sect;  call  it  what 
you  will)  of  persons  untouched  by  and  above 
the  law.  And  one  step  further  and  I  saw  with 
another  slight  start  that  perfect  freedom,  perfect 


THE  CARAVANERS  193 

liberty,  perfect  deliverance  from  trammels,  are 
only  to  be  found  in  a  person  who  is  not  merely 
unconscious  but  also  dead. 

These,  of  course,  as  I  need  not  tell  my  hearers, 
are  metaphysics.  I  do  not  often  embark  on 
their  upsetting  billows  for  I  am,  principally, 
a  practical  man.  But  on  this  occasion  they  were 
not  as  fruitless  as  usual,  for  the  thought  of  a 
person  dead  suggested  at  once  the  thought  of 
a  person  engaged  in  going  through  the  sickness 
preliminary  to  being  dead,  and  a  sick  man  is 
also  to  a  certain  extent  free  —  nobody,  that  is, 
can  make  him  get  up  and  go  out  into  the  rain 
and  hold  his  umbrella  over  Jellaby's  back  while  he 
concocts  his  terrible  porridge.  I  decided  that  I 
would  slightly  exaggerate  the  feelings  of  discom- 
fort which  I  undoubtedly  felt,  and  take  a  day  off 
in  the  haven  of  my  bed.  Let  them  see  to  it  that 
the  horse  was  led;  a  man  in  bed  cannot  lead  a 
horse.  Nor  would  it  even  be  an  exaggeration, 
for  one  who  has  been  wakeful  half  the  night  cannot 
be  said  to  be  in  normal  health.  Besides,  if  you 
come  to  that,  who  is  in  normal  health  ?  I  should 
say  no  one.  Certainly  hardly  any  one.  And  if 
you  appeal  to  youth  as  an  instance,  what  could 
be  younger  and  yet  more  convulsed  with  apparent 
torment  than  the  newly  born  infant  ?  Hardly  any 
one,  I  maintain,  is  well  without  stopping  during  a 
single  whole  day.     One  forgets,  by  means  of  the 


194  THE  CARAVANERS 

anodynes  of  work  or  society  or  other  excitement; 
but  cut  off  a  person's  means  of  doing  anything  or 
seeing  any  one  and  he  will  soon  find  out  that  at 
least  his  head  is  aching. 

When,  therefore,  Edelgard  had  reached  the 
stage  of  tidying  the  caravan,  arranging  my  clothes, 
and  emptying  the  water  out  of  the  window  pre- 
paratory to  my  dressing,  I  put  the  curtains  aside 
and  beckoned  to  her  and  made  her  understand 
by  dint  of  much  shouting  (for  the  rain  still  pelted 
on  the  roof)  that  I  was  feeling  very  weak  and 
could  not  get  up. 

*  She  looked  at  me  anxiously,  and  pushing 
up  the  sponge  bag  —  at  which  she  stared  rather 
stupidly  —  laid  her  hand  on  my  forehead.  I 
thought  her  hand  seemed  hot,  and  hoped  we 
were  not  both  going  to  be  ill  at  the  same  time. 
Then  she  felt  my  pulse.  Then  she  looked  down 
at  me  with  a  worried  expression  and  said  —  I 
could  not  hear  it,  but  knew  the  protesting  shape 
her  mouth  assumed:    "But  Otto " 

I  just  shook  my  head  and  closed  my  eyes. 
You  cannot  make  a  man  open  his  eyes.  Shut 
them,  and  you  shut  out  the  whole  worrying, 
hurrying  world,  and  enter  into  a  calm  cave  of 
peace  from  which,  so  long  as  you  keep  them  shut 
no  one  can  possibly  pull  you.  I  felt  she  stood 
there  awhile  longer  looking  down  at  me  before 
putting  on  her  cloak  and  preparing  to  face  the 


THE  CARAVANERS  195 

elements;  then  the  door  was  unbolted,  a  gust  of 
wet  air  came  in,  the  caravan  gave  a  lurch,  and 
Edelgard  had  jumped  into  the  stubble. 

Only  for  a  short  time  was  I  able  to  reflect  on 
her  growing  agility,  and  how  four  days  back  she 
could  no  more  jump  into  stubble  or  anything  else 
than  can  other  German  ladies  of  good  family,  and 
how  the  costume  she  had  bought  in  Berlin  and 
which  had  not  fitted  her  not  only  without  a  wrinkle 
but  also  with  difficulty,  seemed  gradually  to  be 
turning  into  a  misfit,  to  be  widening,  to  be  loosen- 
ing, and  those  parts  of  it  which  had  before  been 
smooth  were  changing  every  day  into  a  greater 
bagginess  —  I  was  unable,  I  say,  to  think  about 
these  things  because,  worn  out,  I  at  last  fell  asleep. 

How  long  I  slept  I  do  not  know,  but  I  was 
very  roughly  awakened  by  violent  tossings  and 
heavings,  and  looking  hastily  through  my  cur- 
tains saw  a  wet  hedge  moving  past  the  window. 

So  we  were  on  the  march. 

I  lay  back  on  my  pillow  and  wondered  who 
was  leading  my  horse.  They  might  at  least 
have  brought  me  some  breakfast.  Also  the 
motion  was  extremely  disagreeable,  and  likely  to 
give  me  a  headache.  But  presently,  after  a  dizzy 
swoop  round,  a  pause  and  much  talking  showed 
me  we  had  come  to  a  gate,  and  I  understood 
that  we  had  been  getting  over  the  stubble  and 
were  now  about  to  rejoin  the  road.    Once  on 


196  THE  CARAVANERS 

that  the  motion  was  not  unbearable  —  not  nearly 
so  unbearable,  I  said  to  myself,  as  tramping  in 
the  rain;  but  I  could  not  help  thinking  it  very 
strange  that  none  of  them  had  thought  to  give 
me  breakfast,  and  iil  my  wife  the  omission  was 
more  than  strange,  it  was  positively  illegal.  If 
love  did  not  bring  her  to  my  bedside  with  hot 
coffee  and  perhaps  a  couple  of  (lightly  boiled)  eggs, 
why  did  not  duty  ?  A  fasting  man  does  not  mind 
which  brings  her,  so  long  as  one  of  them  does. 

My  impulse  was  to  ring  the  bell  angrily,  but 
it  died  away  on  my  recollecting  that  there  was 
no  bell.  The  rain,  I  could  see,  had  now  lightened 
and  thinned  into  a  drizzle,  and  I  could  hear  cheer- 
ful talk  going  on  between  some  persons  evidently 
walking  just  outside.  One  voice  seemed  to  be 
Jellaby*s,  but  how  could  it  be  he  who  was  cheer- 
ful after  the  night  he  must  have  had  ?  And  the 
other  was  a  woman's  —  no  doubt,  I  thought 
bitterly,  Edelgard's,  who,  warmed  herself  and 
invigorated  by  a  proper  morning  meal,  cared  noth- 
ing that  her  husband  should  be  lying  there  within 
a  stone's  throw  like  a  cold,  neglected  tomb. 

Presently,  instead  of  the  hedge,  the  walls  and 
gates  of  gardens  passed  the  window,  and  then 
came  houses,  singly  at  first,  but  soon  joining  on  to 
each  other  in  an  uninterrupted  string,  and  raising 
myself  on  my  elbow  and  putting  two  and  two 
together,  I  decided  that  this  must  be  Wadhurst. 


THE  CARAVANERS  197 

It  was.  To  my  surprise  about  the  middle 
of  the  village  the  caravan  stopped,  and  raising 
myself  once  more  on  my  elbow  I  was  forced 
immediately  to  sink  back  again,  for  I  encountered 
a  row  of  eager  faces  pressed  against  the  pane  with 
eyes  rudely  staring  at  the  contents  of  the  caravan, 
which,  of  course,  included  myself  as  soon  as  I 
came  into  view  from  between  the  curtains  of 
the  berth. 

This  was  very  disagreeable.  Again  I  instinct- 
ively and  frantically  sought  the  bell  that  was 
not  there.  How  long  was  I  to  be  left  thus  in 
the  street  of  a  village  with  my  window-curtains 
unclosed  and  the  entire  population  looking  in? 
I  could  not  get  out  and  close  them  myself,  for  I 
am  staunch  to  the  night  attire,  abruptly  termi- 
nating, that  is  still,  thank  heaven,  characteristic 
during  the  hours  of  darkness  of  every  honest 
German  gentleman:  in  other  words,  I  do  not 
dress  myself,  as  the  English  do,  in  a  coat  and 
trousers  in  order  to  go  to  bed.  But  on  this 
occasion  I  wishetl  that  I  did,  for  then  I  could 
have  leaped  out  of  my  berth  and  drawn  the 
curtains  in  an  instant  myself,  and  the  German 
attire  allows  no  margin  for  the  leaping  out  of 
berths.  As  it  was,  all  I  could  do  was  to  lie  there 
holding  the  berth-curtains  carefully  together  until 
such  time  as  it  should  please  my  dear  wife  to 
honour  me  with  a  visit. 


198  THE  CARAVANERS 

This  she  did  after,  I  should  say,  at  least  half 
an  hour  had  passed,  with  the  completely  com- 
posed face  of  one  who  has  no  reproaches  to 
make  herself,  and  a  cup  of  weak  tea  in  one 
hand  and  a  small  slice  of  dry  toast  on  a  plate 
in  the  other,  though  she  knows  I  never  touch 
tea  and  that  it  is  absurd  to  offer  a  large-framed, 
fine  man  one  piece  of  toast  with  no  butter  on  it 
for  his  breakfast. 

"What  are  we  stopping  for?'*  I  at  once  asked 
on  her  appearing. 

"For  breakfast,"  said  she. 

"What?" 

"We  are  having  it  in  the  inn  to-day  because 
of  the  wet.  It  is  so  nice.  Otto.  Table-napkins 
and  everything.  And  flowers  in  the  middle. 
And  nothing  to  wash  up  afterward.  What  a 
pity  you  can't  be  there !     Are  you  better  ? " 

"Better?"  I  repeated,  with  a  note  of  justified 
wrath  in  my  voice,  for  the  thought  of  the  others 
all  enioying  themselves,  sitting  at  a  good  meal  on 
proper  chairs  in  a  room  out  of  the  reach  of  fresh 
air,  naturally  upset  me.  Why  had  they  not  told 
me  ?  Why,  in  the  name  of  all  that  was  dutiful, 
had  she  not  told  me  ? 

"I  thought  you  were  asleep,"  said  she  when 
I  inquired  what  grounds  she  had  for  the  omission. 

"So  I  was,  but  that " 

**And  I  know  you  don't  like  being  disturbed 


THE  CARAVANERS  199 

when  you  are,"  said  she,  lamely  as  I  considered, 
for  naturally  it  depends  on  what  one  is  disturbed 
for  —  of  course  I  would  have  got  up  if  I  had 
known. 

"I  will  not  drink  such  stuff,"  I  said,  pushing 
the  cup  away.  "Why  should  I  live  on  tepid 
water  and  butterless  toast  ? " 

**But  —  didn't  you  say  you  were  ill?"  she 
asked,  pretending  to  be  surprised.  "I  thought 
when  one  is  ill " 

"Kindly  draw  those  curtains,"  I  said,  for  the 
crowd  was  straining  every  nerve  to  see  and  hear, 
"and  remove  this  stuff.  You  had  better,"  I 
added,  when  the  faces  had  been  shut  out,  "return 
to  your  own  breakfast.  Do  not  trouble  about  me. 
Leave  me  here  to  be  ill  or  not.  It  does  not  matter. 
You  are  my  wife,  and  bound  by  law  to  love  me, 
but  I  will  make  no  demands  on  you.  Leave  me 
here  alone,  and  return  to  your  breakfast." 

"But,  Otto,  I  couldn't  stay  in  here  with  you 
before.     The  poor  horse  would  never " 

"I  know,  I  know.  Put  the  horse  before  your 
husband.  Put  anything  and  anybody  before 
your  husband.  Leave  him  here  alone.  Do  not 
trouble.  Go  back  to  your  own,  no  doubt,  excel- 
lent breakfast." 

"But  Otto,  why  are  you  so  cross?" 

"Cross?  When  a  man  is  ill  and  neglected,  if 
he  dare  say  a  word  he  is  cross.     Take  this  stuff 


200  THE  CARAVANERS 

away.  Go  back  to  your  breakfast.  I,  at  least,  am 
considerate,  and  do  not  desire  your  omelettes  and 
other  luxuries  to  become  cold." 

"It  isn't  omelettes,"  said  Edelgard.  '*Why 
are  you  so  unreasonable  ?  Won't  you  really  drink 
this  ? "  And  again  she  held  out  the  cup  of  straw- 
coloured  tea. 

Then  I  turned  my  face  to  the  wall,  determined 
that  nothing  she  could  say  or  do  should  make  me 
lose  my  temper.  "Leave  me,"  was  all  I  said, 
with  a  backward  wave  of  the  hand. 

She  lingered  a  moment,  as  she  had  done  in 
the  morning,  then  went  out.  Somebody  outside 
took  the  cup  from  her  and  helped  her  down  the 
ladder,  and  a  conviction  that  it  was  Jellaby  caused 
such  a  wave  of  just  anger  to  pass  over  me  that, 
being  now  invisible  to  the  crowd,  I  leaped  out  of 
my  berth  and  began  quickly  and  wrathfully  to 
dress.  Besides,  as  she  opened  the  door  a  most 
attractive  odour  of  I  do  not  know  what,  but  un- 
doubtedly something  to  do  with  breakfast  in  the 
inn,  had  penetrated  into  my  sick  chamber. 

"  'Ere  'e  is,"  said  one  of  the  many  children  in 
the  crowd,  when  I  emerged  dressed  from  the 
caravan  and  prepared  to  descend  the  steps;  "  'ere's 
'im  out  of  the  bed." 

I  frowned. 

"  Don't  'e  get  up  late  ?  "  said  another. 

I  frowned  again. 


"  'Z?^-    '-    .•»  » 


'Ere 


e  ts 


THE  CARAVANERS  201 

"  Don't  'e  look  different  now  ? "  said  a  third. 

I  deepened  my  frown. 

"Takes  it  easy  'e  do,  don't  'e,"  said  a  fourth, 
"in  spite  of  pretendin'  to  be  a  poor  gipsy." 

I  got  down  the  steps  and  elbowed  my  way 
sternly  through  them  to  the  door  of  the  inn.  There 
I  paused  an  instant  on  the  threshold  and  faced 
them,  frowning  at  them  as  individually  as  I  could. 

"I  have  been  ill,"  I  said  briefly. 

But  in  England  they  have  neither  reverence 
nor  respect  for  an  officer.  In  my  own  country  if 
any  one  dared  to  speak  to  me  or  of  me  in  that 
manner  in  the  street  I  would  immediately  draw 
my  sword  and  punish  him,  for  he  would  in  my 
person  have  insulted  the  Emperor's  Majesty,  whose 
uniform  I  wore;  and  it  would  be  useless  for  him 
to  complain,  for  no  magistrate  would  listen  to  him. 
But  in  England  if  anybody  wants  to  make  a  target 
of  you,  a  target  you  become  for  so  long  as  his 
stock  of  wit  (heaven  save  the  mark!)  lasts.  Of 
course  the  crowd  in  Wadhurst  must  have  known. 
However  much  my  mackintosh  disguised  me  it 
was  evident  that  I  was  an  officer,  for  there  is  no 
mistaking  the  military  bearing;  but  for  their  own 
purposes  they  pretended  they  did  not,  and  when 
therefore  turning  to  them  with  severe  dignity  I 
said:  "I  have  been  ill,"  what  do  you  think  they 
said?    They  said,  "Yah." 

For  a  moment  I  supposed,  with  some  surprise 


202  THE  CARAVANERS 

I  confess,  that  they  were  acquainted  with  the  Ger- 
man tongue,  but  a  glance  at  their  faces  showed  me 
that  the  expression  must  be  EngHsh  and  rude.  I 
turned  abruptly  and  left  these  boors:  it  is  not 
part  of  my  business  to  teach  a  foreign  nation 
manners. 

My  frowns,  however,  were  smoothed  when  I 
entered  the  comfortable  breakfast-room  and  was 
greeted  with  a  pleasant  chorus  of  welcome  and 
inquiries. 

Frau  von  Eckthum  made  room  for  me  beside 
her,  and  herself  ministered  to  my  wants.  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  laughed  and  praised  me  for  my 
sensibleness  in  getting  up  instead  of  giving  way. 
The  breakfast  was  abundant  and  excellent.  And  I 
discovered  that  it  was  the  ever  kind  and  thought- 
ful Lord  Sigismund  who  had  helped  Edelgard  out 
of  the  caravan,  Jellaby  being  harmlessly  occupied 
writing  picture  postcards  to  (I  suppose)  his  con- 
stituents. 

By  the  time  I  had  had  my  third  cup  of  coffee 
—  so  beneficial  is  the  effect  of  that  blessed  bean  — 
I  was  able  silently  to  forgive  Edelgard  and  be  ready 
to  overlook  all  her  conduct  since  the  camp  by 
the  Medway  and  start  fresh  again;  and  when 
toward  eleven  o'clock  we  resumed  the  march,  a 
united  and  harmonious  band  (for  the  child  Jumps 
was  also  that  day  restored  to  health  and  her  friends) 
we  found  the  rain  gone  and  the  roads  being  dried 


THE  CARAVANERS  203 

up  with  all  the  efficiency  and  celerity  of  an  un- 
clouded August  sun. 

That  was  a  pleasant  march.  The  best  we  had 
had.  It  may  have  been  the  weather,  which  was 
?»lso  the  best  we  had  had,  or  it  may  have  been  the 
country,  which  was  undeniably  pretty  in  its  homely 
unassuming  way  —  nothing,  of  course,  to  be  com- 
pared with  what  we  would  have  gazed  at  from  the 
topmost  peak  of  the  Rigi  or  from  a  boat  on  the 
bosom  of  an  Italian  lake,  but  very  nice  in  its  way 
—  or  it  may  have  been  because  Frau  von  Eckthum 
walked  with  me,  or  because  Lord  Sigismund  told 
me  that  next  day  being  Sunday  we  were  going  to 
rest  in  the  camp  we  got  to  that  night  till  Monday, 
and  dine  on  Sunday  at  the  nearest  inn,  or,  perhaps 
it  was  all  this  mingled  together  that  made  me  feel 
so  pleasant. 

Take  away  annoyances  and  worry,  and  I  am 
as  good-natured  a  man  as  you  will  find.  More, 
I  can  enjoy  anything,  and  am  ready  with  a  jest 
about  almost  anything.  It  is  the  knowledge  that 
I  am  really  so  good-humoured  that  principally 
upsets  me  when  Edelgard  or  other  circumstances 
force  me  into  a  condition  of  vexation  unnatural  to 
me.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  vexed.  I  do  not  wish 
ever  to  be  disagreeable.  And  it  is,  I  think,  down- 
right wrong  of  people  to  force  a  human  being  who 
does  not  wish  it  to  be  so.  That  is  one  of  the 
reasons  why  I  enjoyed  the  company  of  Frau  von 


204  THE  CARAVANERS 

Eckthum.  She  brought  out  what  was  best  in  me, 
what  I  may  be  pardoned  for  caUing  the  perfume 
of  my  better  self,  because  though  it  contains  the 
suggestion  that  my  better  self  is  a  flower-like  object 
it  also  implies  that  she  was  the  warming  and  vivi- 
fying and  scent-extracting  sun. 

There  is  a  dew-pond  at  the  top  of  one  of  the 
hills  we  walked  up  that  day  (at  least  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  said  it  was  a  dew-pond,  and  that  the  water 
in  it  was  not  water  at  all  but  dew,  though  naturally 
I  did  not  believe  her  —  what  sensible  man  would  ?) 
and  by  its  side  in  the  shade  of  an  oak  tree  Frau 
von  Eckthum  and  I  sat  while  the  three  horses 
went  down  to  fetch  up  the  third  caravan,  nominally 
taking  care  of  those  already  up  but  really  resting 
in  that  pretty  nook  without  bothering  about  them, 
for  of  all  things  in  the  world  a  horseless  caravan  is 
surely  most  likely  to  keep  quiet.  So  we  rested, 
and  I  amused  her.  I  really  do  not  know  about 
what  in  particular,  but  I  know  I  succeeded,  for 
her  oh's  became  quite  animated,  and  were  placed 
with  such  dexterous  intelligence  that  each  one 
contained  volumes. 

She  was  interested  in  everything,  but  especially 
so  in  what  I  said  about  Jellaby  and  his  doctrines, 
of  which  I  made  great  fun.  She  listened  with 
the  most  earnest  attention  to  my  exposure  of  the 
fallacies  with  which  he  is  riddled,  and  became 
at   last   so   evidently    convinced    that    I    almost 


THE  CARAVANERS  205 

wished  the  young  gentleman  had  been  there  too 
to  hear  me. 

Altogether  an  agreeable,  invigorating  day;  and 
when,  about  three  o'clock,  we  found  a  good  camp- 
ing ground  in  a  wide  field  sheltered  to  the  north 
by  a  copse  and  rising  ground,  and  dropping 
away  in  front  of  us  to  a  most  creditable  and  exten- 
sive view,  for  the  second  time  since  I  left  Panthers 
I  was  able  to  suspect  that  caravaning  might  not  be 
entirely  without  its  commendable  points. 


CHAPTER  XII 

WE  SUPPED  that  night  beneath  the  stars 
with  the  field  dropping  downward  from 
our  feet  into  the  misty  purple  of  the  Sussex  Weald. 
What  we  had  for  supper  was  chicken  and  rice  and 
onions,  and  very  excellent  it  was.  The  wind  had 
gone,  and  it  was  cold.  It  was  like  a  night  in 
North  Germany,  where  the  wind  sighs  all  day 
long  and  at  sunset  it  suddenly  grows  coldly  and 
clearly  calm. 

These  are  quotations  from  a  conversation  I 
overheard  between  Frau  von  Eckthum  (oddly 
loquacious  that  night)  and  Jellaby,  who  both  sat 
near  where  I  was  eating  my  supper,  supposed  to 
be  eating  theirs  but  really  letting  it  spoil  while 
they  looked  down  at  the  Sussex  Weald  (I  wish  I 
knew  what  a  Weald  is:  Kent  had  one  too)  and 
she  described  the  extremely  flat  and  notoriously 
dull  country  round  Storchwerder. 

Indeed  I  would  not  have  recognized  it  from 
her  description,  and  yet  I  know  it  every  bit  as  well 
as  she  can.  Blue  air,  blue  sky,  blue  water,  and  the 
flash  of  white  wings  —  that  was  how  she  described 
it,  and  poor  Jellaby  was  completely  taken  in  and 

ao6 


THE  CARAVANERS  207 

murmured  "Beautiful,  beautiful"  in  his  foolish 
slow  voice,  and  forgot  to  eat  his  chicken  and  rice 
while  it  was  hot,  and  little  guessed  that  she  had 
laughed  at  him  with  me  a  few  hours  before. 

I  listened,  amused  but  tolerant.  We  must 
not  keep  a  pretty  lady  too  exactly  to  the  truth. 
The  first  part  of  this  chapter  is  a  quotation  from 
what  I  heard  her  say  (excepting  one  sentence),  but 
my  hearers  must  take  my  word  for  it  that  it  did 
not  sound  anything  like  as  silly  as  one  might 
suppose.  Everything  depends  on  the  utterer. 
Frau  von  Eckthum*s  quasi-poetical  way  of  describ- 
ing the  conduct  of  our  climate  had  an  odd  attract- 
iveness about  it  that  I  did  not  find,  for  instance, 
in  my  dear  wife*s  utterances  when  she  too,  which 
she  at  this  time  began  to  do  with  increasing 
frequency,  indulged  in  the  quasi-poetic.  Quasi- 
poetic  I  and  other  plain  men  take  to  be  the  violent 
tearing  of  such  a  word  as  rolling  from  its  natural 
place  and  applying  it  to  the  plains  and  fields  round 
Storchwerder.  A  ship  rolls,  but  fields,  I  am  glad 
to  say,  do  not.  You  may  also  with  perfect  pro- 
priety talk  about  a  rolling-pin  in  connection  with 
the  kitchen,  or  of  a  rolling  stone  in  connection  with 
moss.  Of  course  I  know  that  we  all  on  suitable 
occasions  make  use  of  exclamations  of  an  apprecia- 
tive nature,  such  as  colossal  and  grossartig,  but 
that  is  brief  and  business-like,  it  is  what  is  expected 
of  us,  and  it  is  a  duty  quickly  performed  and  almost 


2o8  THE  CARAVANERS 

perfunctory,  with  one  eye  on  the  waiter  and  the 
restaurant  behind;  but  slow  raptures,  prolonged 
ones,  raptures  beaten  out  thin,  are  not  in  my  way 
and  had  not  till  then  been  in  Edelgard's  way  either. 
The  English  are  flimsier  than  we  are,  thinner 
blooded,  more  feminine,  more  finnicking.  There 
are  no  restaurants  or  Bierhalle  wherever  there  is  a 
good  view  to  drown  their  admiration  in  wholesome 
floods  of  beer,  and  not  being  provided  with  this 
natural  stopper  it  fizzles  on  to  interminableness. 
Why,  Jellaby  I  could  see  not  only  let  his  supper 
get  stone  cold  but  forgot  to  eat  it  at  all  in  his 
endeavour  to  outdo  Frau  von  Eckthum's  style 
in  his  replies,  and  then  Edelgard  must  needs 
join  in  too,  and  say  (I  heard  her)  that  life  in 
Storchwerder  was  a  dusty,  narrow  life,  where  you 
could  not  see  the  liehe  Gott  because  of  other 
people's  chimney-pots. 

Greatly  shocked  (for  I  am  a  religious  man)  I 
saved  her  from  further  excesses  by  a  loud  call  for 
more  supper,  and  she  got  up  mechanically  to  attend 
to  my  wants. 

Jellaby,  however,  whose  idea  seemed  to  be  that 
a  woman  is  never  to  do  anything  (I  wonder  who 
is  to  do  anything,  then  ^)  forestalled  her  with 
the  sudden  nimbleness  he  displayed  on  such 
occasions,  so  surprising  in  combination  with  his 
clothes  and  general  slackness,  and  procured  me 
a  fresh  helping. 


THE  CARAVANERS  209 

I  thanked  him  politely,  but  could  not  repress 
some  irony  in  my  bow  as  I  apologized  for  dis- 
turbing him. 

"Shall  I  hold  your  plate  while  you  eat  ?'*  he  said. 

"Why,  Jellaby?"  I  asked,  mildly  astonished. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  even  more  comfortable  if  I 
did?"  he  asked;  and  then  I  perceived  that  he 
was  irritated,  no  doubt  because  I  had  got  most  of 
the  cushions,  and  he.  Quixotic  as  he  is,  had  given 
up  his  to  my  wife,  on  whom  it  was  entirely  thrown 
away  for  she  has  always  assured  me  she  actually 
prefers  hard  seats. 

Well,  of  course  there  were  few  things  in  the 
world  quite  so  unimportant  as  Jellaby's  irritation, 
so  I  just  looked  pleasant  and  at  the  food  he 
had  brought  me;  but  I  did  not  get  another 
evening  with  Frau  von  Eckthum.  She  sat 
immovable  on  the  edge  of  the  slope  with  my  wife 
and  Jellaby,  talking  in  tones  that  became  more 
and  more  subdued  as  dusk  deepened  into  night 
and  stars  grew  hard  and  shiny. 

They  all  seemed  subdued.  They  even  washed  up 
in  whispers.  And  afterward  the  very  nondescripts 
lay  stretched  out  quite  quietly  by  the  glowing  em- 
bers of  Lord  Sigismund's  splendid  fire  listening  to 
Menzies-Legh's  and  Lord  Sidge's  talk,  in  which 
I  did  not  join  for  it  was  on  the  subject  they  were 
so  fond  of,  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of 
those  dull  and  undeserving  persons,  the  poor. 


2IO  THE  CARAVANERS 

I  put  my  plate  where  somebody  would  see  it 
and  wash  it,  and  retired  to  the  shelter  of  a  hedge 
and  the  comfort  of  a  cigar.  The  three  figures 
on  the  edge  of  the  hill  became  gradually  almost 
mute.  Not  a  leaf  in  my  hedge  stirred.  It  was 
so  still  that  people  talking  at  the  distant  farm 
where  we  had  procured  our  chickens  could  almost 
be  understood,  and  a  dog  barking  somewhere  far 
away  down  in  the  Weald  seemed  quite  threaten- 
ingly near.  It  was  really  extraordinarily  still;  and 
the  stillest  thing  of  all  was  that  strange  example 
of  the  Englishwoman  grafted  on  what  was  origin- 
ally such  excellent  German  stock,  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh,  sitting  a  yard  or  two  away  from  me,  her 
hands  clasped  round  her  knees,  her  face  turned 
up  as  though  she  were  studying  astronomy. 

I  do  not  suppose  she  moved  for  half  an  hour. 
Her  profile  seemed  to  shine  white  in  the  dusk 
with  lines  that  reminded  me  somehow  of  a  cameo 
there  is  in  a  red  velvet  case  lying  on  the  table  in 
our  comfortable  drawing-room  at  Storchwerder, 
and  the  remembrance  brought  a  slight  twinge  of 
home-sickness  with  it.  I  shook  this  off,  and  fell 
to  watching  her,  and  for  the  amusement  of  an 
idle  hour  lazily  reconstructed  from  the  remnants 
before  me  what  her  appearance  must  have  been 
ten  years  before  in  her  prime,  when  there  were  at 
least  undulations,  at  least  suggestions  that  here 
was  a  woman  and  not  a  kind  of  elongated  boy. 


THE  CARAVANERS  211 

The  line  of  her  face  is  certainly  quite  passable; 
and  that  night  in  the  half  darkness  it  was  quite  as 
passable  as  any  I  have  seen  on  a  statue  —  objects 
in  which  I  have  never  been  able  to  take  much 
interest.  It  is  probable  she  used  to  be  beautiful. 
Used  to  be  beautiful .?  What  is  the  value  of 
that?  Just  a  snap  of  the  fingers,  and  nothing 
more.  If  women  would  but  realize  that  once  past 
their  first  youth  their  only  chance  of  pleasing  is  to 
be  gentle  and  rare  of  speech,  tactful,  deft  —  in  one 
word,  apologetic,  they  would  be  more  likely  to 
make  a  good  impression  on  reasonable  men  such 
as  myself.  I  did  not  wish  to  quarrel  with  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  and  yet  her  tongue  and  the  way 
she  used  it  put  my  back  up  (as  the  British  say) 
to  a  height  it  never  attains  in  the  placid  pools  of 
feminine  intercourse  in  Storchwerder. 

To  see  her  sit  so  silent  and  so  motionless  was 
unusual.  Was  she  regretting,  perhaps,  her  lost 
youth  ?  Was  she  feeling  bitter  at  her  inability 
to  attract  me,  a  man  within  two  yards  of  her, 
suflSciently  for  me  to  take  the  trouble  to  engage 
her  in  conversation  ?  No  doubt.  Well  —  poor 
thing!  I  am  sorry  for  women,  but  there  is 
nothing  to  be  done  since  Nature  has  decreed 
they  shall  grow  old. 

I  got  up  and  shook  out  the  folds  of  my  mackin- 
tosh —  a  most  useful  garment  in  those  damp 
places  —  and  threw  away  the  end  of  my  cigar. 


212  THE  CARAVANERS 

"I  am  now  going  to  retire  for  the  night,"  I 
explained,  as  she  turned  her  head  at  my  rusthng, 
"and  if  you  take  my  advice  you  will  not  sit  here 
till  you  get  rheumatism/' 

She  looked  at  me  as  though  she  did  not  hear. 
In  that  light  her  appearance  was  certainly  quite 
passable:  quite  as  passable  as  that  of  any  of  the 
statues  they  make  so  much  fuss  about;  and  then 
of  course  with  proper  eyes  instead  of  blank  spaces, 
and  eyes  garnished  with  that  speciality  of  hers,  the 
ridiculously  long  eyelashes.  But  I  knew  what  she 
was  like  in  broad  day,  I  knew  how  thin  she  was,  and 
I  was  not  to  be  imposed  upon  by  tricks  of  light;  so 
I  said  in  a  matter  of  fact  manner,  seizing  the 
opportunity  for  gentle  malice  in  order  to  avenge 
myself  a  little  for  her  repeated  and  unjustified 
attacks  on  me,  "You  will  not  be  wise  to  sit  there 
longer.  It  is  damp,  and  you  and  I  are  hardly  as 
young  as  we  were,  you  know." 

Any  normal  woman,  gentle  as  this  was,  would 
have  shrivelled.  Instead  she  merely  agreed  in  an 
absent  way  that  it  was  dewy,  and  turned  up  her 
face  to  the  stars  again. 

"Looking  for  the  Great  Bear,  eh?"  1  remarked, 
following  her  gaze  as  I  buttoned  my  wrap. 

She  continued  to  gaze,  motionless.  "No,  but 
—  don't  you  see  ?  At  Christ  Whose  glory  fills  the 
skies,"  she  said  —  both  profanely  and  senselessly, 
her  face  in  that  light  exactly  like  the  sort  of  thing 


THE  CARAVANERS  213 

one  sees  in  the  windows  of  churches,  and  her 
voice  as  though  she  were  half  asleep. 

So  I  hied  me  (poetry  being  the  fashion)  to  my 
bed,  and  lay  awake  in  it  for  some  time  being  sorry 
for  Menzies-Legh,  for  really  no  man  can  possibly 
like  having  a  creepy  wife. 

But  (luckily)  autres  temps  autres  mceurs,  as  our 
unbalanced  but  sometimes  felicitous  neighbours 
across  the  Vosges  say,  and  next  morning  the 
poetry  of  the  party  was,  thank  heaven,  clogged  by 
porridge. 

It  always  was  at  breakfast.  They  were  strangely 
hilarious  then,  but  never  poetic.  Poetry  developed 
later  in  the  day  as  the  sun  and  their  spirits  sank 
together,  and  flourished  at  its  full  growth  when 
there  were  stars  or  a  moon.  That  morning,  our 
first  Sunday,  a  fresh  breeze  blew  up  from  the 
Weald  below  and  a  cloudless  sun  dazzled  us  as  it 
fell  on  the  white  cloth  of  the  table  set  out  in  the 
middle  of  the  field  by  somebody  —  I  expect  it  was 
Mrs.  Menzies-Leigh  —  who  wanted  to  make  the 
most  of  the  sun,  and  we  had  to  hold  on  our  hats 
with  one  hand  and  shade  our  eyes  with  the  other 
while  we  ate. 

Uncomfortable .?  Of  course  it  was  uncomfort- 
able. Let  no  one  who  loves  to  be  comfortable 
ever  caravan.  Neither  let  any  one  who  loves 
order  and  decency  do  so.  They  may  take  it 
from  me  that  there  is  never  any  order,  and  even 


214  THE  CARAVANERS 

less  frequently  is  there  any  decency.  I  can  give 
you  an  example  from  that  Sunday  morning.  I 
was  sitting  at  the  table  with  the  ladies,  on  a  seat 
(as  usual)  too  low  for  me,  and  that  (also  as  usual) 
slanted  on  the  uneven  ground,  with  my  feet 
slightly  too  cold  in  the  damp  grass  and  my 
head  slightly  too  hot  in  the  bright  sun,  and  the 
general  feeling  of  subtle  discomfort  and  ruffledness 
that  is  one  of  the  principal  characteristics  of  this 
form  of  pleasure-taking,  when  I  saw  (and  so  did  the 
ladies)  Jellaby  emerge  from  his  tent  —  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  if  you  please  —  and  fastening  up  a  mirror 
on  the  roof  of  his  canvas  lair  proceed  then  and 
there  in  the  middle  of  the  field  to  lather  his  face 
and  then  to  shave  it. 

Edelgard,  of  course,  true  to  her  early  training, 
at  once  cast  down  her  eyes  and  was  careful  to  keep 
them  averted  during  the  remainder  of  the  meal, 
but  nobody  else  seemed  to  mind;  indeed,  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  got  out  her  camera  and  focussing 
him  with  deliberate  care  snap-shotted  him. 

Were  these  people  getting  blunted  as  the  days 
passed  to  the  refinements  and  necessary  precautions 
of  social  intercourse  ?  I  had  been  stirred  to  much 
silent  indignation  by  the  habit  of  the  gentlemen 
of  walking  in  their  shirt  sleeves,  and  had  not 
yet  got  used  to  that,  but  to  see  Jellaby  dress- 
ing in  an  open  field  was  a  little  more  than  I 
could  endure  in  silence.     For  if,  I  asked  myself 


THE  CARAVANERS  215 

rapidly,  Jellaby  dresses  (shaving  being  a  part  of 
dressing)  out-of-doors  in  the  morning,  what  is  to 
prevent  his  doing  the  opposite  in  the  evening? 
Where  is  the  line  ?  Where  is  the  logical  limit  ? 
We  had  now  been  three  days  out,  and  we  had 
already  got  to  this.  Where,  I  thought,  should 
we  have  got  to  in  another  six  ?  Where  should  we 
be  by,  say,  the  following  Sunday  ? 

I  cannot  think  a  promiscuous  domesticity 
desirable,  and  am  one  of  those  who  strongly  dis- 
approve of  that  worst  example  of  it,  the  mixed 
bathing  or  Familienhad  which  blots  with  practically 
unclothed  Jews  of  either  sex  our  otherwise  decent 
coasts.  Never  have  I  allowed  Edelgard  to  indulge 
in  it,  nor  have  I  done  so  myself.  It  is  a  deplorable 
spectacle.  We  used  to  sit  and  watch  it  for  hours, 
in  a  condition  of  ever-increasing  horror  and  dis- 
gust —  it  was  quite  difficult  to  find  seats  some- 
times, so  many  of  our  friends  were  there  being 
disgusted  too. 

But  these  denizens  of  the  deep  at  the  points 
where  the  deep  was  a  Familienhad  were,  as  I  have 
said,  chiefly  Jews  and  their  Jewesses,  and  what 
can  you  expect  ?  Jellaby,  however,  in  spite  of  his 
other  infirmities,  was  not  yet  a  Jew ;  he  was  every- 
thing else  I  think,  but  that  crowning  infamy  had 
up  to  then  been  denied  him. 

But  not  to  be  one  and  yet  to  behave  with  the 
laxness  of  one  within  view  of  the  rest  of  the  party 


2i6  THE  CARAVANERS 

was  very  inexcusable.  "Are  there  no  hedges  to 
this  field?"  I  cried  in  indignant  sarcasm,  looking 
pointedly  at  each  of  its  four  hedges  in  turn  and 
raising  my  voice  so  that  he  could  hear. 

"Oh,  Baron  dear,  it's  Sunday,"  said  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  no  longer  a  rather  nice-looking  if 
irreverent  cameo  in  a  velvet  case,  but  full  of  morn- 
ing militancy.  "Don't  be  cross  till  to-morrow. 
Save  it  up,  or  what  will  you  do  on  Monday  ?" 

"Be,  I  trust,  just  as  capable  of  distinguishing 
between  the  permitted  and  the  non-permitted  as  I 
am  to-day,"  was  my  ready  retort. 

"Oh,  oh,"  said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  shaking 
her  head  and  smiling  as  though  she  were  talking 
to  a  child  or  a  feeble-minded;  and  turning  her 
camera  on  to  me  she  took  my  photograph. 

"Pray  why,"  I  inquired  with  justifiable  heat, 
"should  I  be  photographed  without  my  consent?" 

"Because,"  she  said,  "you  look  so  deliciously 
cross.  I  want  to  have  you  in  my  scrap-book  like 
that.   You  looked  then  exactly  like  a  baby  I  know." 

"Which  baby?"  I  asked,  frowning  and  at 
a  loss  how  to  meet  this  kind  of  thing  conversa- 
tionally. And  there  was  Edelgard,  all  ears; 
and  if  a  wife  sees  her  husband  being  treated 
disrespectfully  by  other  women  is  it  not  very 
likely  that  she  soon  will  begin  to  treat  him  so 
herself?  "Which  baby?"  I  asked;  but  knew 
myself  inadequate. 


THE  CARAVANERS  217 

"Oh,  a  perfectly  respectable  baby,"  said  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  carelessly,  putting  her  camera  down 
and  going  on  with  her  breakfast,  "but  irritable 
and  exacting  about  things  like  bottles." 

"But  I  do  not  see  what  I  have  to  do  with 
bottles,"  I  said  nettled. 

"Oh,  no  —  you  haven't.  Only  it  looks  at  its 
nurse  just  like  you  did  then  if  they're  late,  or  not 
full  enough." 

"  But  I  did  not  look  at  its  nurse,"  I  said  angrily, 
becoming  still  more  so  as  they  all  (including  my 
wife)  laughed. 

I  rose  abruptly.     "I  will  go  and  smoke,"  I  said. 

Of  course  I  saw  what  she  meant  about  the 
nurse  the  moment  I  had  spoken,  but  it  is  inexcus- 
able to  laugh  at  a  man  because  he  does  not  imme- 
diately follow  the  sense  (or  rather  the  senselessness) 
of  a  childishly  skipping  conversation.  I  am  as 
ready  as  any  one  to  laugh  at  really  amusing 
phrases  or  incidents,  but  being  neither  a  phrase  nor 
an  incident  myself  I  do  not  see  why  I  should  be 
laughed  at.  Surely  it  is  unworthy  of  grown  men 
and  women  to  laugh  at  each  other  in  the  way  silly 
children  do?  It  is  ruin  to  the  graces  of  social 
intercourse,  to  the  courtliness  that  should  uninter- 
ruptedly distinguish  the  well-born.  But  there 
was  a  childish  spirit  pervading  the  whole  party 
(with  the  exception  of  myself)  that  seemed  to 
increase  as  the  days  went  by,  a  spirit  of  unreason- 


2i8  THE  CARAVANERS 

ing  glee  and  mischievousness  which  I  believe  is 
characteristic  of  very  young  and  very  healthy 
children.  Even  Edelgard  was  daily  becoming 
more  calf-like,  as  we  say,  daily  descending  nearer 
to  the  level  occupied  at  first  only  by  the  two  nonde- 
scripts, that  level  at  which  you  begin  to  play  idiotic 
and  heating  games  like  the  one  the  English  call 
Blind  Man's  Buff  (an  obviously  foolish  name, 
for  what  is  buff?)  and  which  we  so  much  more 
sensibly  call  Blind  Cow.  Therefore  I,  having  no 
intention  at  my  age  and  in  my  position  of  joining 
in  puerilities  or  even  of  seeming  to  countenance 
them  by  my  presence,  said  abruptly,  "I  will 
smoke'*  —  and  strode  away  to  do  it. 

One  of  the  ladies  called  after  me  to  inquire  if 
I  were  not  going  to  church  with  them,  but  I  pre- 
tended not  to  hear  and  strode  on  toward  the 
shelter  of  the  hedge,  giving  Jellaby  as  I  passed  him 
such  a  look  as  would  have  caused  any  one  not  over- 
grown with  the  leather  substitute  for  skin  peculiar 
to  persons  who  set  order,  morals,  and  religion  at 
defiance,  to  creep  confounded  into  his  tent  and 
stay  there  till  his  face  was  ready  and  his  collar  on. 
He,  however,  called  out  with  the  geniality  born 
of  brazenness,  that  it  was  a  jolly  morning;  of 
which,  of  course,  I  took  no  notice. 

In  the  dry  ditch  beneath  the  hedge  on  the  east 
side  of  the  field  sat  Lord  Sigismund  beside  his 
latUrie  de  cuisine^  watching  over,  with  unaccount- 


THE  CARAVANERS  219 

able  and  certainly  misplaced  kindness,  the  porridge 
and  the  coffee  that  were  presently  to  be  Jellaby's. 
While  he  watched  he  smoked  his  pipe,  stroked  his 
dog,  and  hummed  snatches  of  what  I  supposed 
were  psalms  with  the  pleasant  humming  of  the 
good,  the  happy,  and  the  well-born. 

Near  him  lay  Menzies-Legh,  his  dark  and 
sinister  face  bent  over  a  book.  He  nodded 
briefly  in  response  to  my  lifted  hat  and  morning 
salutation,  while  Lord  Sigismund,  full  as  ever  of 
the  graciousness  of  noble  birth,  asked  me  if  I  had 
had  a  good  night. 

*'A  good  night,  and  an  excellent  breakfast, 
thanks  to  you.  Lord  Sidge,"  I  replied;  the  touch 
of  playfulness  contained  in  the  shortened  name 
lightening  the  courteous  correctness  of  my  bow  as 
I  arranged  myself  next  to  him  in  the  ditch. 

Menzies-Legh  got  up  and  went  away.  It  was 
characteristic  of  him  that  he  seemed  always  to  be 
doing  that.  I  hardly  ever  joined  him  but  he  was 
reminded  by  my  approach  of  something  he  ought 
to  be  doing  and  went  away  to  do  it.  I  mentioned 
this  to  Edelgard  during  the  calm  that  divided  one 
difference  of  opinion  from  another,  and  she  said  he 
never  did  that  when  she  joined  him. 

"Dear  wife,"  I  explained,  "you  have  less 
power  to  remind  him  of  unperformed  duties  than 
I  possess." 

"I  suppose  I  have,"  said  Edelgard. 


220  THE  CARAVANERS 

"And  it  is  very  natural  that  it  should  be  so. 
Power,  of  whatever  sort  it  may  be,  is  a  masculine 
attribute.  I  do  not  wish  to  see  my  little  wife 
with  any." 

"Neither  do  I,"  said  she. 

"Ah  —  there  speaks  my  own  good  little  wife." 

"I  mean,  not  if  it  is  that  sort.'* 

"What  sort,  dear  wife?" 

"The  sort  that  reminds  people  whenever  I 
come  that  it  is  time  they  went." 

She  looked  at  me  with  the  odd  look  that  I 
observed  for  the  first  time  during  our  English 
holiday.  Often  have  I  seen  it  since,  but  I  cannot 
recollect  having  seen  it  before.  I,  noticing  that 
somehow  we  did  not  understand  each  other,  patted 
her  kindly  on  the  shoulder,  for,  of  course,  she  can- 
not always  quite  follow  me,  though  I  must  say 
she  manages  very  creditably  as  a  rule. 

"Well,  well,"  I  said,  patting  her,  "we  will 
not  quibble.  It  is  a  good  little  wife,  is  it  not  ? " 
And  I  raised  her  chin  by  means  of  my  fore- 
finger, and  kissed  her. 

This,  however,  is  a  digression.  I  suppose  it 
is  because  I  am  unfolding  my  Hterary  wings  for 
the  first  time  that  I  digress  so  frequently.  At 
least  I  am  aware  of  it,  which  is  in  itself,  I  should 
say,  a  sign  of  literary  instinct.  My  Muse  has 
been,  so  to  speak,  kept  in  bed  without  stopping 
till  middle  age,  and  is  now  suddenly  called  upon 


THE  CARAVANERS  221 

to  get  up  and  go  for  a  walk.  Such  a  muse  must 
inevitably  stagger  a  little  at  first.  I  will,  however, 
endeavour  to  curb  these  staggerings,  for  I  perceive 
that  I  have  already  written  more  than  can  be  con- 
veniently read  aloud  in  one  evening,  and  though 
I  am  willing  the  same  friends  should  come  on  two, 
I  do  not  know  that  I  care  to  see  them  on  as  many 
as  three.     Besides,  think  of  all  the  sandwiches. 

(This  last  portion  of  the  narrative,  from  "one 
evening"  to  ** sandwiches"  will,  of  course,  be 
omitted  in  public.) 

I  will,  therefore,  not  describe  my  conversation 
with  Lord  Sigismund  in  the  ditch  beyond  saying 
that  it  was  extremely  interesting,  and  conducted  on 
his  side  (and  I  hope  on  mine)  with  the  social  skill 
of  a  perfect  gentleman. 

It  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  arrival  of 
Jellaby  and  his  dog,  which  was  immediately 
pounced  on  by  Lord  Sigismund's  dog,  who  very 
properly  resented  his  uninvited  approach,  and 
they  remained  inextricably  mixed  together  for 
what  seemed  an  eternity  of  yells,  the  yells  rend- 
ing the  Sabbath  calm  and  mingling  with  the 
distant  church  bells,  and  all  proceeding  from 
Jellaby's  dog,  while  Lord  Sigismund*s,  a  true 
copy  of  his  master,  did  that  which  he  had  to  do 
with  the  silent  self-possession  of,  if  I  may  so 
express  it,  a  dog  of  the  world. 

The  entire  company  of  caravaners,  including 


222  THE  CARAVANERS 

old  James,  ran  up  with  cries  and  whistling  to  try 
to  separate  them,  and  at  last  Jellaby,  urged  on  I 
suppose  to  deeds  of  valour  by  knowing  the  eyes 
of  the  ladies  upon  him,  made  a  mighty  effort  and  , 
tore  them  asunder,  himself  getting  torn  along  his 
hand  as  the  result. 

Menzies-Legh  helped  Lord  Sigismund  to  drag 
away  the  naturally  infuriated  bull-terrier,  and 
Jellaby,  looking  round,  asked  me  to  hold  his  dog 
while  he  went  and  washed  his  hand.  I  thought 
this  a  fair  instance  of  the  brutal  indifference  to 
other  people's  tastes  that  characterizes  the  British 
nation.  Why  did  he  not  ask  old  James,  who  was 
standing  there  doing  nothing?  Yet  what  was  I 
to  do  ?  There  were  the  ladies  looking  on,  among 
them  Edelgard,  motionless,  leaving  me  to  my  fate, 
though  if  either  of  us  knows  anything  about  dogs 
it  is  she  who  does.  Jellaby  had  got  the  beast  by 
the  collar,  so  I  thought  perhaps  holding  him  by 
the  tail  would  do.  It  was  true  it  was  the  merest 
stump,  but  at  least  it  was  at  the  other  end.  I 
therefore  grasped  it,  though  with  no  little  trouble, 
for,  for  some  unknown  reason,  just  as  my  hand 
approached  it,  it  began  to  wag. 

"No,  no  —  catch  hold  of  the  collar.  He's  all 
right,  he  won't  do  anything  to  you,"  said  Jellaby, 
grinning  and  keeping  his  wounded  hand  well  away 
from  him  while  the  nondescripts  ran  to  fetch  water. 

The  brute  was  quiet  for  a  moment,  and  under 


THE  CARAVANERS  223 

the  circumstances  I  do  think  Edelgard  might  have 
helped.  She  knows  I  cannot  bear  dogs.  If  she 
had  held  his  head  I  would  not  have  minded  going 
on  holding  his  tail,  and  at  home  she  would  have 
made  herself  useful  as  a  matter  of  course.  Here, 
however,  she  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  stood 
tearing  up  a  perfectly  good,  clean  handkerchief  into 
strips  in  order,  forsooth,  to  render  that  assistance 
to  Jellaby  which  she  denied  her  own  husband.  I 
did  take  the  dog  by  the  collar,  there  being  no 
other  course  open  to  me,  and  was  thankful  to  find 
that  he  was  too- tired  and  too  much  hurt  to  do 
anything  to  me.  But  I  have  never  been  a  dog 
lover,  carefully  excluding  them  from  my  flat  in 
Storchwerder,  and  selling  the  one  Edelgard  had 
had  as  a  girl  and  wanted  to  saddle  me  with  on 
her  marriage.  I  remember  how  long  it  took,  she 
being  then  still  composed  of  very  raw  material, 
to  make  her  understand  I  had  married  her  and  not 
her  Dachshund.  Will  it  be  believed  that  her 
only  answer  to  my  arguments  was  a  repeated 
parrot-like  cry  of  "But  he  is  so  sweet!'*  A 
feeble  plea,  indeed,  to  set  against  the  logic  of  my 
reasons.  She  shed  tears,  I  remember,  in  quan- 
tities more  suited  to  fourteen  than  twenty-four 
(as  I  pointed  out  to  her),  but  later  on  did  acknowl- 
edge, in  answer  to  my  repeated  inquiries,  that 
the  furniture  and  carpets  were,  no  doubt,  the 
better  for  it,  though  for  a  long  time  she  had  a 


224  THE  CARAVANERS 

tendency  which  I  found  some  difficulty  in  repress- 
ing, to  make  tiresomely  plaintive  allusions  to 
the  fact  that  the  buyer  (I  sold  the  dog  by  auction) 
had  chanced  to  be  a  maker  of  sausages  and  she  had 
not  happened  to  meet  the  dog  since  in  the  streets. 
Also,  until  I  spoke  very  seriously  to  her  about  it, 
for  months  she  would  not  touch  anything  potted, 
after  always  having  been  particularly  fond  of  this 
type  of  food. 

I  soon  found  myself  alone  and  unheeded  with 
Jellaby's  dog,  while  Jellaby  himself,  the  flattered 
centre  of  the  entire  body  of  ladies,  was  having 
his  wound  dressed.  My  wife  washed  it.  Jumps 
held  the  bucket,  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  bound  it  up, 
Frau  von  Eckthum  provided  one  of  her  own  safety 
pins  (I  saw  her  take  it  out  of  her  blouse),  and 
Jane  lent  her  sash  for  a  sling.  As  for  Lord  Sigis- 
mund,  after  having  seen  to  his  own  dog's  wounds 
(all  made  by  Jellaby's  dog)  he  came  back  and, 
with  truly  Christian  goodness,  offered  to  wash 
and  doctor  Jellaby's  dog.  His  attitude,  indeed, 
during  these  dog-fights  was  only  one  possible  to 
a  person  of  the  very  highest  breeding.  Never 
a  word  of  reproach,  yet  it  was  clear  that  if  Jellaby's 
dog  had  not  been  there  there  would  have  been 
no  fighting.  And  he  exhibited  a  real  distress 
over  Jellaby's  wound,  while  Jellaby,  thoroughly 
thick-skinned,  laughed  and  declared  he  did  not 
feel  it;  which,  no  doubt,  was  true,  for  that  sort 


THE  CARAVANERS  225 

of  person  does  not,  I  am  convinced,  feel  anything 
like  the  same  amount  we  others  do. 

The  end  of  this  pleasant  Sabbath  morning 
episode  was  that  Jellaby  took  his  dog  to  the  nearest 
village  containing  a  veterinary  surgeon,  and  Men- 
zies-Legh  was  found  in  the  ditch  almost  as  green 
as  the  surrounding  leaves  because  —  will  it  be 
believed  ?  —  he  could  never  stand  the  sight  of 
blood! 

My  hearers  will,  I  am  sure,  be  amused  at  this. 
Of  course,  many  Britons  must  be  the  same,  for  it 
is  unlikely  that  I  should  have  chanced  in  those  few 
days  to  meet  the  solitary  instance,  and  I  could 
hardly  repress  a  hearty  laugh  at  the  spectacle  of 
this  specimen  of  England's  manhood  in  a  half 
fainting  condition  because  he  had  seen  a  scratch 
that  produced  blood.  What  will  he  and  his  kind 
do  on  that  battle-field  of,  no  doubt,  the  near  future, 
when  the  finest  army  in  the  world  will  face  them  ? 
It  will  not  be  scratches  that  poor  Menzies-Legh 
will  have  to  look  at  then,  and  I  greatly  fear  for 
his  complexion. 

Everybody  ran  in  different  directions  in  search 
of  brandy.  Never  have  I  seen  a  man  so  green. 
He  was,  at  least,  ashamed  of  himself,  and  find- 
ing I  was  a  moment  alone  with  him  and  he  not 
in  a  condition  to  get  up  and  go  away,  I  spoke 
an  earnest  word  or  two  about  the  inevitably  efi^em- 
inating  effect  on  a  man  of  so  much  poetry-reading 


226  THE  CARAVANERS 

and  art-admiring  and  dabbling  in  the  concerns 
of  the  poor.  Not  thus,  I  explained,  did  the 
Spartans  spend  their  time.  Not  thus  did  the 
ancient  Romans,  during  their  greatest  period, 
behave.  "You  feel  the  situation  of  the  poor, 
for  instance,  far  more  than  the  poor  feel  it  them- 
selves," I  said,  "and  allow  yourself  to  be  worried 
into  alleviating  a  wretchedness  that  they  are  used 
to,  and  do  not  notice.  And  what,  after  all,  is  art  ? 
And  what,  after  all,  is  poetry  ?  And  what,  if  you 
come  to  that,  is  wretchedness?  Do  not  weaken 
the  muscles  of  your  mind  by  feeding  it  so  con- 
stantly on  the  pap  of  either  your  own  sentimen- 
tality or  the  sentimentality  of  others.  Pull  down 
these  artificial  screens.  Be  robust.  Accustom 
yourself  to  look  at  facts  without  flinching.  Imi- 
tate the  conduct  of  the  modern  Japanese,  who 
take  their  children,  as  part  of  their  training,  to 
gaze  on  executions,  and  on  their  return  cause  the 
rice  for  their  dinner  to  be  served  mixed  with 
the  crimson  juices  of  the  cherry,   so  that  they 

shall  imagine " 

But    Menzies-Legh    turned    yet   greener,  and 
fainted  away. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

I  AM  accustomed  punctually  to  discharge  my 
obligations  in  what  may  be  called  celestial 
directions,  holding  it  to  be  every  man's  duty  not 
to  put  a  millstone  round  a  weaker  vessel's  neck 
by  omitting  to  set  a  good  example.  Also,  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word,  I  am  a  religious  man.  Did 
not  Bismarck  say,  and  has  not  the  saying  become 
part  and  parcel  of  the  marrow  of  the  nation, 
"We  Germans  fear  God  and  nothing  else  in  the 
world "  ?  In  exactly,  I  should  say,  the  same  way 
and  degree  as  Bismarck  was,  am  I  religious. 
At  Storchwerder,  where  I  am  known,  I  go  to 
church  every  alternate  Sunday  and  allow  myself 
to  be  advised  and  cautioned  by  the  pastor,  willing 
to  admit  it  is  his  turn  to  speak  and  recognizing 
that  he  is  paid  to  do  so,  but  reserving  to  myself 
the  right  to  put  him  and  keep  him  in  his  proper 
place  during  the  fourteen  secular  days  that  divide 
these  pious  oases.  Before  our  daily  dinner  also  I 
say  grace,  a  rare  thing  in  households  where  there 
are  no  children  to  look  on ;  and  if  I  do  not,  as  a  few 
of  the  stricter  households  do,  conduct  family  prayers 
every  day,  it  is  because  I  do  not  like  them. 

227 


228  THE  CARAVANERS 

There  is,  after  all,  a  limit  at  which  duty  must 
retire  before  a  man*s  personal  tastes.  We  are 
not  solely  machines  for  discharging  obligations. 
I  see  perfectly  clearly  that  it  is  most  good  and 
essential  that  one's  cook  and  wife  should  pray 
together,  and  even  one's  orderly,  but  I  do  not  see 
that  they  require  the  assistance  and  countenance 
of  the  gentleman  of  the  house  while  they  do  it. 

I  am  religious  in  the  best  and  highest  sense  of 
the  word,  a  sense  that  soars  far  above  family 
prayers,  a  sense  in  no  way  to  be  explained,  any 
more  than  other  high  things  are  explainable. 
The  higher  you  get  in  the  regions  of  thought  the 
more  dumb  you  become.  Also  the  more  quiescent. 
Doing,  as  all  persons  of  intellect  know,  is  a  very 
inferior  business  to  thinking,  and  much  more 
likely  to  make  one  hot.  But  these  cool  excursions 
of  the  intellect  are  not  to  be  talked  about  to 
women  and  the  lower*  classes.  What  would 
happen  if  they  too  decided  to  prefer  quiescence .? 
For  them  creeds  and  churches  are  positive  neces- 
sities, and  the  plainer  and  more  definite  they  are 
the  better.  The  devout  poor,  the  devout  mothers 
of  families,  how  essential  they  are  to  the  freedom 
and  comfort  of  the  rest.  The  less  you  have  the 
more  it  is  necessary  that  you  should  be  contented, 
and  nothing  does  this  so  thoroughly  as  the  doctrine 
of  resignation.  It  would  indeed  be  an  unthinkable 
calamity  if  all  the  uneducated  and  the  feeble- 


THE  CARAVANERS  229 

minded,  the  lower  classes  and  the  women,  should 
lose  their  piety  enough  to  want  things.  Women, 
it  is  true,  are  fairly  safe  so  long  as  they  have  a  child 
once  a  year,  which  is  Nature's  way  of  keeping 
them  quiet;  but  it  fills  me  with  nothing  short  of 
horror  when  I  hear  of  any  discontent  among 
the  male  portion  of  the  proletariat. 

That  these  people  should  have  a  vote  is  the 
one  mistake  that  great  and  peculiarly  typical 
German,  the  ever-to-be-lamented  Bismarck,  made. 
To  reflect  that  power  is  in  the  hands  of  such  per- 
sons, any  power,  even  the  smallest  shred  of  it, 
alarms  me  so  seriously  that  if  I  think  of  it  on  a 
Sunday  morning,  when  perhaps  I  had  decided 
to  omit  going  to  church  for  once  and  rest  at  home 
while  my  wife  went,  I  hastily  seize  my  parade 
helmet  and  hurry  off  in  a  fever  of  anxiety  to  help 
uphold  the  pillars  of  society. 

Indeed  it  is  of  paramount  necessity  that  we 
should  cling  to  the  Church  and  its  teaching;  that 
we  should  see  that  our  wives  cling;  that  we  should 
insist  on  the  clinging  of  our  servants;  and  these 
Sunday  morning  reflections  occurring  to  me  as  I 
look  back  through  the  months  to  that  first  Sunday 
out  of  our  Fatherland,  I  seem  to  feel  as  I  write 
(though  it  is  now  December  and  sleeting)  the 
summer  breeze  blowing  over  the  grass  on  to  my 
cheek,  to  hear  the  small  birds  (I  do  not  know  their 
names)  twittering,  and  to  see  Frau  von  Eckthum 


230  THE  CARAVANERS 

coming  across  the  field  in  the  sun  and  standing 
before  me  with  her  pretty  smile  and  teUing  me 
she  is  going  to  church  and  asking  whether  I  will 
go  too.  Of  course  I  went  too.  She  really  was 
(and  is,  in  spite  of  Storchwerder)  a  most  attractive 
lady. 

We  went,  then,  together,  Jellaby  safely  away 
at  the  veterinary  surgeon's,  Edelgard  following 
behind  with  the  two  fledglings,  who  had  achieved 
an  unusually  clean  appearance  and  had  more  of 
the  budding  maiden  about  them  than  I  had  yet 
observed,  and  Lord  Sigismund  and  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  remaining  with  our  patient,  who  had 
recovered  enough  to  sit  in  a  low  chair  in  the  shade 
and  be  read  aloud  to.  Let  us  hope  the  book  was 
virile.  But  I  greatly  doubt  it,  for  his  wife's  voice 
in  the  peculiar  sing-song  that  seems  to  afflict  the 
voice  of  him  who  reads  verses,  zigzagged  behind 
us  some  way  across  the  field. 

After  our  vagrant  life  of  the  last  few  days  it 
seemed  odd  to  be  walking  respectably  along  with 
no  horse  to  lead,  presently  joining  other  respect- 
able persons  bent  on  the  same  errand.  They 
seemed  to  know  we  were  the  dusty  caravaners 
who  had  trudged  past  the  afternoon  before,  and 
we  were  well  stared  at.  In  the  church,  too,  an 
imposing  lady  in  the  pew  in  front  of  us  sat  sideways 
in  her  corner  and  examined  us  with  calm  atten- 
tion through  her  eye-glass  both  before  the  service 


O     Q 


31 


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s 

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H-^ 

V) 

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THE  CARAVANERS  231 

began  and  during  it  whenever  the  sitting  portions 
of  the  ritual  were  reached.  She  was,  we  afterward 
discovered,  the  lady  of  the  manor  or  chief  lady  in 
the  place,  and  it  was  in  one  of  her  fields  we  were 
camping.  We  heard  that  afternoon  from  the 
farmer  that  she  had  privately  visited  our  camp 
the  evening  before  with  her  bailiff  and  his  dogs 
and  observed  us,  also  with  the  aid  of  her  eye- 
glass, over  the  hedge  as  we  sat  absorbed  round 
our  supper,  doubtful  whether  we  were  not  a  circus 
and  ought  not  instantly  to  be  moved  on.  I  fancy 
the  result  of  her  scrutiny  in  church  was  very 
satisfactory.  She  could  not  fail  to  see  that  here 
she  had  to  do  with  a  gentleman  of  noble  birth, 
and  the  ladies  of  the  party,  in  pews  concealing 
their  short  skirts  but  displaying  their  earrings, 
were  seen  to  every  advantage.  I  caught  her  eye 
so  repeatedly  that  at  last,  quite  involuntarily,  and 
yielding  to  a  natural  instinct,  I  bowed  —  a  little, 
not  deeply,  out  of  considerations  of  time  and  place. 
She  did  not  return  my  bow,  nor  did  she  after  that 
look  again,  but  attended  during  the  rest  of  the 
service  to  her  somewhat  neglected  devotions. 

My  hearers  will  be  as  much  surprised  as  I  was, 
though  not  half  so  tired,  when  I  tell  them  that 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  service  I  was  expected 
to  remain  on  my  knees.  We  Germans  are  not 
accustomed  to  our  knees.  I  had  certainly  never 
used    mine    for    praying    purposes   before;   and 


232  THE  CARAVANERS 

inquiry  later  on  elicited  the  information  that 
the  singular  nation  kneels  every  night  by  its 
beds  before  getting  into  them,  and  says  prayers 
there  too. 

But  it  was  not  only  the  kneeling  that  shocked 
me  (for  if  you  ache  and  stiffen  how  can  you 
properly  pray!  As  Satan  no  doubt  very  well 
knew  when  he  first  put  it  into  their  heads  to  do 
it)  —  it  was  the  extraordinary  speed  at  which  the 
service  was  run  through.  We  began  at  eleven, 
and  by  a  quarter  to  twelve  we  were,  so  to  speak, 
ejected  shriven.  No  flock  can  fatten  on  such  a 
diet.  How  differently  are  the  flocks  of  the  Father- 
land fed!  There  they  grow  fat  indeed  on  the 
ample  extemporizations  of  their  pastor,  or  have 
every  opportunity  of  doing  so  if  they  want  to. 
Does  he  not  address  them  for  the  best  part  of  an 
hour?  Which  is  not  a  moment  too  long  for  a 
meal  that  is  to  last  seven  days. 

The  English  pastor,  arrayed  in  white  with  two 
meaningless  red  ribbons  down  his  back,  preached 
for  seven  minutes,  providing  as  I  rapidly  calcu- 
lated exactly  one  minute's  edification  for  each 
day  of  the  week  until  the  following  Sunday.  Alas, 
for  the  sheep  of  England!  That  is  to  say,  alas 
from  the.  mere  generally  humane  point  of  view, 
but  not  otherwise  alas,  for  their  disadvantage 
must  always  be  our  gain,  and  a  British  sheep 
starved   into  socialism  and   civil  war  is  almost 


THE  CARAVANERS  233 

more  valuable  to  us  than  a  German  sheep  which 
shall  be  fat  with  faith. 

The  pastor,  evidently  a  militant  man,  preached 
against  the  sin  of  bigotry,  which  would  have  been 
all  very  well  as  far  as  it  went  and  listened  to  by 
me  with  the  tolerance  I  am  accustomed  to  bring 
to  bear  on  pulpit  utterances  if  he  had  not  in  the 
same  breath  —  there  was  hardly  time  for  more 
than  one  —  called  down  heaven's  wrath  on  all 
who  attend  the  meetings  or  services  of  forms  of 
faith  other  than  the  Anglican.  These  other 
forms  include,  as  I  need  not  point  out,  the 
Lutheran.  Really  I  found  it  difficult  to  suppress 
a  smile  at  the  poor  man's  folly.  I  longed  for 
Luther  (a  thing  I  cannot  remember  ever  to  have 
done  before)  to  rise  up  and  scatter  the  blinded 
gentleman  out  of  his  pulpit.  But  hardly  had  I 
got  as  far  as  this  in  my  thoughts  than  a  hurried 
benediction,  a  hasty  hymn,  a  rapid  passing  round 
of  the  English  equivalent  for  what  we  call  God's 
box,  ended  the  service.  Genuinely  shocked  at 
this  breathlessness  —  and  you,  my  hearers,  who 
know  no  other  worship  than  that  leisurely  one  in 
Storchwerder  and  throughout  our  beloved  Prussian 
land  (I  do  not  allude  to  Roman  Catholics  beyond 
saying,  in  a  spirit  of  tolerant  humanity,  poor 
things),  that  worship  which  fills  the  entire  morning, 
that  composed  and  comfortable  worship  during 
which  you  sit  almost  the  whole  time  so  that  no 


234  THE  CARAVANERS 

fatigue  of  the  feet  or  knees  shall  distract  your 
thoughts  from  the  matter  in  hand,  you  who  join 
sitting  in  our  chorales,  slow  and  dignified  set- 
tings of  ancient  sentiments  with  ample  spaces 
between  the  verses  for  the  thinking  of  appro- 
priate thoughts  in  which  you  are  assisted  by 
the  meditative  organ,  and  stand,  as  men  should 
who  are  not  slaves,  to  pray,  you  will,  I  am  sure, 
be  shocked  too  —  I  decided  that  here  no  doubt 
was  one  of  the  keys  to  the  manifest  decadence 
of  the  British  character.  Reverence  and  speed 
can  never  go  together.  Irreverence  in  the  treat- 
ment of  its  creeds  is  an  inevitable  sign  that  a 
nation  is  well  on  that  downward  plane  which 
jerks  it  at  last  into  the  jaws  of  (say)  Germany. 
Well,  so  be  it.  Though  irreverence  is  undoubtedly 
an  evil,  and  I  am  the  first  to  deplore  it,  I  cannot 
deplore  it  as  much  as  I  would  if  it  were  not 
going  to  be  the  cause  of  that  ultimate  jerking. 
And  what  a  green  and  fruitful  land  it  is!  Es 
wird  gut  schmecken,  as  we  men  of  healthy 
appetite  say. 

We  walked  home  —  an  expression  that  used  to 
strike  me  as  strangely  ironical  when  home  was 
only  grass  and  hedges  —  discussing  these  things. 
That  is,  I  discussed  and  Frau  von  Eckthum  said 
Oh  ?  But  the  sympathy  of  the  voice,  the  implied 
agreement  with  my  views,  the  appreciation  of  the 
way  I  put  them,  the  perfect  mutual  understanding 


THE  CARAVANERS  235 

expressed,  all  this  I  cannot  describe  even  if  I  would 
to  you  prejudiced  critics. 

Edelgard  went  on  ahead  with  the  two  young 
girls.  She  and  I  did  not  at  this  point  see  much 
of  each  other,  but  quite  enough.  Being  human 
I  got  tired  sometimes  of  being  patient,  and  yet 
it  was  impossible  to  be  anything  else  inside  a 
caravan  with  walls  so  thin  that  the  whole  camp 
would  have  to  hear.  Nor  can  you  be  impatient 
in  the  middle  of  a  field:  to  be  so  comfortably 
you  must  be  on  the  other  side  of*at  least  a  hedge; 
so  that  on  the  whole  it  was  best  we  should  seldom 
be  together. 

With  Frau  von  Eckthum,  on  the  other  hand, 
I  never  had  the  least  desire  to  be  anything  but 
the  mildest  of  men,  and  we  walked  home  as  har- 
moniously as  usual  to  find  when  we  arrived  that, 
though  we  had  in  no  way  lingered,  the  active  pastor 
was  there  before  us. 

With  what  haste  he  must  have  stripped  off  his 
ribbons  and  by  what  short  cuts  across  ditches  he 
had  reached  the  camp  so  quickly  I  cannot  say, 
but  there  he  was,  ensconced  in  one  of  the  low 
chairs  talking  to  the  Menzies-Leghs  as  though 
he  had  known  them  all  his  life. 

This  want  of  ceremony,  this  immediate  famil- 
iarity prevailing  in  British  circles,  was  a  thing  I 
never  got  used  to.  With  us,  first  of  all,  the  pastor 
would  not  have  come  at  all,  and  secondly,  once 


236  THE  CARAVANERS 

come,  he  would  still  have  been  in  the  stage  of 
ceremonious  preface  when  we  arrived,  and  only 
emerged  from  his  preliminary  apologies  to  enter 
into  the  series  of  prayers  for  forgiveness  which 
would  round  off  his  visit.  Thus  there  would 
be  no  time  so  much  as  to  reach  the  ice,  far  less 
to  break  it,  and  I  am  conservative  enough  and 
aristocratic  enough  to  like  ice:  it  is  such  an 
excellent  preservative. 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  was  feeding  her  invalid 
with  biscuits  and  milk.  "  Have  some  ? "  said  she 
to  the  pastor,  holding  out  a  cup  of  this  attractive 
beverage  without  the  least  preliminary  grace  of 
speech. 

He  took  it,  for  his  part,  without  the  least  pre- 
liminary ceremony  of  polite  refusal  which  would 
call  forth  equally  polite  pressure  on  her  side  and 
end  with  a  tactful  final  yielding  on  his;  he  took 
it  without  even  interrupting  his  talk  to  Menzies- 
Legh,  and  stretching  out  his  hand  helped  himself 
to  a  biscuit,  though  nobody  had  offered  him  one. 

Now  what  can  be  the  possible  future  of  a 
nation  deliberately  discarding  all  the  barriers  of 
good  manners  that  keep  the  natural  brute  in  us 
suppressed  ?  Ought  a  man  to  be  allowed  to  let 
this  animal  loose  on  somebody  else's  biscuit-plate  ? 
It  seems  to  me  the  hedge  of  ceremony  is  very 
necessary  if  you  would  keep  it  out,  and  it  dwells 
in  us  all  alike  whatever  country  we  may  belong  to. 


THE  CARAVANERS  237 

In  Germany,  feeling  how  near  the  surface  it 
really  is,  we  are  particular  and  careful  down  to 
the  smallest  detail.  Experience  having  taught 
us  that  the  only  way  to  circumvent  it  is  to  make 
the  wire-netting,  so  to  speak,  of  etiquette  very 
thick,  we  do  make  it  thick.  And  how  anxiously 
we  safeguard  our  honour,  keeping  it  first  of  all 
inside  these  high  and  thick  nets  of  rules,  and  then 
holding  ourselves  ready  on  the  least  approach  to 
it  to  rise  up  and  shed  either  our  own  or  (preferably) 
somebody  else's  blood  in  its  defense.  And  apart 
from  other  animals,  the  rabbit  of  Socialism,  with 
its  two  eldest  children,  Division  of  Property  and 
Free  Love,  is  kept  out  most  effectually  by  this 
netting.  Jellabies  and  their  like,  tolerated  so 
openly  in  Britain,  find  it  difficult  to  burrow  beneath 
the  careful  and  far-reaching  insistence  on  forms 
and  ceremonies  observed  in  other  countries.  Their 
horrid  doctrines  have  little  effect  on  such  an 
armour.  Not  that  I  am  not  modern  enough  and 
large  minded  enough  to  be  very  willing  to  divide 
my  property  if  I  may  choose  the  person  to  divide 
it  with.  All  those  Jewish  bankers  in  Berlin  and 
Hamburg,  for  instance  —  when  I  think  of  a 
division  with  them  I  see  little  harm  and  some 
comfort;  but  to  divide  with  my  orderly,  Hermann, 
or  with  the  man  who  hangs  our  breakfast  rolls  in 
a  bag  on  the  handle  of  our  back  door  every  morn- 
ing, is  another  matter.     As  for  Free  Love,  it  is 


238  THE  CARAVANERS 

not  to  be  denied  that  there  are  various  things  to 
be  said  for  that  too,  but  not  in  this  place.  Let 
me  return.  Let  me  return  from  a  subject  which, 
though  legitimate  enough  foremen  to  discuss,  is 
yet  of  a  somewhat  slippery  complexion,  to  the 
English  pastor  helping  himself  to  our  biscuits,  and 
describe  shortly  how  the  same  scene  would  have 
unrolled  itself  in  a  field  in  the  vicinity  of 
Storchwerder,  supposing  it  possible  that  a  party 
of  well-born  Germans  should  be  camping  in 
one,  that  the  municipal  authorities  had  not  long 
ago  turned  them  out  after  punishing  them  with 
fines,  and  that  the  pastor  of  the  nearest  church 
had  dared  to  come  hot  from  his  pulpit,  and  intrude 
on  them. 

Pastor,  approaching  Menzies-Legh  and  his  wife 
(translated  for  the  nonce  into  two  aristocratic 
Germans)  with  deferential  bows  from  the  point  at 
which  he  first  caught  their  eyes,  and  hat  in  hand: 

"I  entreat  the  Herrschaften  to  pardon  me  a 
thousand  times  for  thus  obtruding  myself  upon 
their  notice.  I  beg  them  not  to  take  it  amiss.  It 
is  in  reality  an  unexampled  shamelessness  on 
my  part,  but  —  may  I  be  permitted  to  introduce 
myself.?     My  name  is  Schultz." 

He  would  here  bow  twice  or  thrice  each  to  the 
Menzies-Leghs,  who  after  staring  at  him  in  some 
natural  surprise  —  for  what  excuse  could  the 
man  possibly  have  ?  —  get  up  and  greet  him  with 


THE  CARAVANERS  239 

solemn  dignity,  both  bowing,  but  neither  offering 
to  shake  hands. 

Pastor,  bowing  again  profoundly,  and  still  hold- 
ing his  hat  in  his  hand,  repeats:  "My  name  is 
Schultz." 

Menzies-Legh  (who  it  must  be  remembered 
is  for  the  moment  a  noble  German)  would  prob- 
ably here  say  under  his  breath:  "And  mine, 
thank  God,  is  not"  —  but  probably  not  quite  loud 
t  enough  (being  extremely  correct)  for  the  pastor  to 
hear,  and  would  then  mention  his  own  name,  with 
its  title,  Fiirst  Graf,  or  Baron,  explaining  that  the 
f      lady  with  him  was  his  wife. 

More  bows  from  the  pastor,  profounder  if 
possible  than  before. 

Pastor:  "I  beseech  the  Herrschaften  to  forgive 
my  thus  appearing,  and  fervently  hope  they  will 
not  consider  me  obtrusive,  or  in  any  way  take 
it  amiss." 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  (now  a  Grafin  at  the  least) : 
"Will  not  the  Herr  Pastor  seat  himself?" 

Pastor,  with  every  appearance  of  being  over- 
come: "Oh,  a  thousand  thanks- — the  gracious 
lady  is  too  good  —  if  I  may  really  be  permitted  to 
sit  —  an  instant  —  after  so  shamelessly " 

He  is  waved  by  Menzies-Legh,  as  he  still 
hesitates,  with  stately  courtesy,  into  the  third  chair, 
into  which  he  sinks,  but  not  until  he  sees  the 
Herrschaften  are  in  the  act  of  sinking  too. 


240  THE  CARAVANERS 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  gracefully  explaining  Men- 
zies-Legh's  greenness  and  silence:  **My  husband 
is  not  very  well  to-day." 

Pastor,  with  every  sign  of  liveliest  interest  and 
compassion:  *'Oh,  that  indeed  makes  me  sorry. 
Has  the  Herr  Graf  then  perhaps  been  over-exert- 
ing himself?  Has  he  perhaps  contracted  a  chill? 
Is  he  suffering  from  a  depressed  stomach  ?" 

Menzies-Legh,  with  a  stately  wave  of  the  hand, 
naturally  unwilling  to  reveal  the  real  reason  why 
he  is  so  green:  "No  —  no." 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh:  "I  was  about  to  refresh 
him  a  little  with  milk.  May  I  be  permitted  to 
pour  out  a  droplet  for  the  Herr  Pastor  ? " 

Pastor,  again  bowing  profusely:  "The  gracious 
one  is  much  too  good.  I  could  not  think  of  per- 
mitting myself " 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh:  "But  I  beg  you,  Herr 
Pastor  —  will  you  not  drink  just  a  little?" 

Pastor:  "The  gracious  one  is  really  very 
amiable.  I  would  not,  however,  be  the  means  of 
depriving  the  Herrschaften  of  their " 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh:  "But  Herr  Pastor,  not  at 
all.  Truly  not  at  all.  Will  you  not  allow  me 
to  pour  you  out  even  half  a  glassful  ?  After  the 
heat  of  your  walk?  And  the  exertion  of  con- 
ducting the  church  service?" 

Pastor,  struggling  to  get  up  from  the  low  chair, 
bow,  and  take  the  proffered  glass  of  milk  at  one 


THE  CARAVANERS  241 

and  the  same  time:  *' Since  the  gracious  one  is 
so  gracious " 

He  takes  the  glass  with  a  deep  bow,  having 
now  reached  the  stage  when,  the  prehminaries 
demanded  by  perfect  courtesy  being  on  each  side 
fulfilled,  he  is  at  liberty  to  do  so,  but  before  drink- 
ing its  contents  turns  bowing  to  Menzies-Legh. 

Pastor:  "But  may  I  not  be  permitted  to  offer  it 
to  the  Herr  Graf?" 

Menzies-Legh,  with  a  stately  wave  of  the  hand: 
"No  — no." 

Pastor,  letting  himself  down  again  into  the 
chair  with  another  bow  and  the  necessary  caution, 
the  glass  being  in  his  hand:  "I  do  not  dare  to 
think  what  the  Herrschaftens  opinion  of  me 
must  be  for  intruding  in  this  manner.  I  can 
only  entreat  them  not  to  take  it  amiss.  I  am 
aware  it  is  an  unexampled  example  of  shame- 
lessness " 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  advancing  with  the  plate 
of  biscuits:  "Will  the  Herr  Pastor  perhaps  eat  a 
biscuit?" 

The  pastor  again  shows  every  sign  of  being 
overcome  with  gratitude,  and  is  about  to  embark 
on  a  speech  of  thanks  and  protest  before  per- 
mitting himself  to  take  one  when  Baron  von 
Ottringel  and  party  appear  on  the  scene,  and  we 
get  to  the  point  at  which  they  really  did  appear. 

Now  what  could  be  more  proper  and  graceful 


242  THE  CARAVANERS 

than  the  whole  of  the  above  ?  It  will  be  observed 
that  there  has  been  no  time  whatever  for  anything 
but  politeness,  no  time  to  embark  on  those  seas 
of  discussion,  sometimes  foolish,  often  unsuitable, 
and  always  sooner  or  later  angry,  on  which  an 
otherwise  budding  acquaintanceship  so  frequently 
comes  to  grief.  We  Germans  of  the  upper  classes 
do  not  consider  it  good  form  to  talk  on  any  subject 
that  is  likely  to  make  us  lose  our  tempers,  so  what 
can  we  talk  about?  There  is  hardly  anything 
really  safe,  except  to  offer  each  other  chairs. 
But  used  as  I  am  to  these  gilt  limits,  elegant  frames 
within  which  it  is  a  pleasure  to  behave  like  a 
picture  (my  friends  will  have  noticed  and  par- 
doned my  liking  for  metaphor)  it  will  easily  be 
imagined  with  what  disapproval  I  stood  leaning 
on  my  umbrella  watching  the  scene  before  me. 
Frau  von  Eckthum  had  gone  into  her  caravan. 
Edelgard  and  the  girls  had  disappeared.  I  alone 
approached  the  party,  not  one  of  which  thought 
it  necessary  to  introduce  me  or  take  other  notice 
of  my  arrival. 

They  were  discussing  with  amusing  absorption 
a  subject  alluded  to  as  the  Licensing  Bill,  which 
was,  I  gathered,  something  heating  to  do  with 
beer,  and  were  weaving  into  it  all  sorts  of  judg- 
ments and  opinions  that  would  have  inflamed  a 
group  of  Germans  at  once.  Menzies-Legh  was  too 
much  interested,  I  suppose,  to  go  on  being  green, 


THE  CARAVANERS  243 

anyhow,  his  greenness  was  all  gone;  and  the  pas- 
tor sawed  up  and  down  with  his  hand,  in  which 
he  clasped  the  biscuit  no  one  had  suggested  he 
should  take.  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  sitting  on  the 
grass  (a  thing  no  lady  should  ever  do  when  a 
gentleman  she  sees  for  the  first  time  is  present  — 
**May  she  the  second  time?'*  asked  Mrs.  Men- 
\  zies-Legh,  when  I  laid  this  principle  down  in  the 
course  of  a  later  conversation,  to  which  I  very 
properly  replied  that  you  cannot  explain  nuances, 
but  only  feel  them),  joined  in  just  as  though  she 
were  a  man  herself  —  I  mean,  with  her  usual  air 
of  unchallenged  equality  of  intelligence,  an  air 
that  would  have  diverted  me  if  it  had  not  annoyed 
me  too  much.  And  they  treated  her,  too,  as  though 
she  were  an  equal,  listening  attentively  to  what  she 
had  to  say,  which,  of  course,  inflates  a  poor  woman 
and  makes  it  difficult  for  her  to  arrive  at  a  right 
estimate  of  herself. 

This  is  how  that  absurd  sexlessness,  the 
Suffragette,  has  been  able  to  come  into  existence. 
I  heard  a  good  deal  about  her  the  first  day 
of  the  tour,  but  on  discovering  how  strongly 
I  felt  on  the  subject,  they  kept  off  it,  not 
liking,  I  suppose,  to  have  their  views  knocked 
out  of  recognition  by  what  I  said.  I  did  not, 
be  it  understood,  deign  to  argue  on  such  a 
topic:  I  just  said  a  few  things  which  frightened 
them  off  it. 


244  THE  CARAVANERS 

And,  indeed,  who  can  take  a  female  Suffragette 
seriously  ?  Encouraged,  I  maintain,  to  begin  with 
by  being  treated  too  well,  she  is  like  the  insolent 
and  pampered  menial  of  a  rich  and  careless  master, 
and  the  more  she  gets  the  more  she  demands. 
Storchwerder  does  not  possess  a  single  example 
of  the  species,  and  very  few  foreigners  come  that 
way  to  set  a  bad  example  to  our  decent  and  con- 
tented ladies.  Once,  I  recollect,  by  some  strange 
chance  the  makings  of  one  did  get  there,  an 
Englishwoman  on  some  wedding  journey  expedi- 
tion or  other,  a  young  creature  next  to  whom  I 
sat  at  a  dinner  given  by  our  Colonel.  I  was  con- 
templating her  with  unconcealed  pleasure,  for  she 
was  quite  young  and  most  agreeably  rounded,  and 
was  turning  over  the  collection  of  amusing  trifles 
I  keep  stored  in  my  mind  for  purposes  of  conver- 
sation with  attractive  ladies  when,  before  I  had 
either  selected  one  or  finished  my  soup,  she  began 
to  talk  to  me  in  breathless  German  about  an 
Education  Bill  our  Reichstag  was  tearing  itself 
to  pieces  over. 

Her  interest  could  not  have  been  keener  if 
she  had  been  a  deputy  herself  with  the  existence 
of  her  party  depending  on  it.  She  had  her  own 
views  about  it,  all  cut  and  dried;  she  explained 
her  husband's,  which  differed  considerably;  and 
she  was  anxious  to  hear  mine.  So  anxious  was 
she  that  she  even  forgot  to  smile  when  speaking 


THE  CARAVANERS  245 

to  me  —  forgot,  that  is,  that  she  was  a  woman  and 
I  a  man  able,  if  inclined,  to  admire  her. 

I  remember  staring  at  her  a  moment  in  un- 
feigned astonishment,  and  then,  leaning  back  in 
my  chair,  giving  myself  up  to  uncontrollable  mirth. 

She  watched  me  with  surprise,  which  made  me 
laugh  still  more.  When  I  could  speak  she 
inquired  whether  any  one  at  the  table  had  said  any- 
thing amusing,  and  seemed  quite  struck  on  my 
assuring  her  that  it  was  she  herself  who  was 
amusing. 

"I  am?"  said  she;  and  a  faint  flush  enhanced 
her  prettiness. 

"Yes  —  you  and  the  Education  Bill  together," 
said  I,  again  overcome  with  laughter.  "It  is 
indeed  an  amusing  mixture.  It  is  like,"  I  added, 
with  happy  readiness  of  compliment,  "a  rose 
in  an  inkpot." 

"But  is  that  amusing?"  she  asked,  not  in  the 
least  grateful  for  the  flattery,  and  with  a  quite 
serious  face. 

She  had  had  her  little  lesson,  however,  and  she 
did  not  again  talk  politics.  Indeed,  she  did  not 
again  talk  at  all,  but  turned  to  the  gentleman  on 
her  other  side,  and  left  me  nothing  to  look  at  but 
a  sweet  little  curl  behind  a  sweet  little  ear. 

Now  if  she  had  been  properly  brought  up  to 
devote  herself  to  the  woman's  function  of  pleasing, 
how  agreeably  we  could  have  discoursed  together 


246  THE  CARAVANERS 

about  that  curl  and  that  ear,  and  kindred  topics, 
branching  off  into  all  sorts  of  flowery  and  seductive 
byways  of  compliment  and  insinuation,  such  as 
the  well-trained  young  woman  thoroughly  enjoys 
and  understands.  I  can  only  trust  the  lesson  I 
gave  her  did  her  good.  It  certainly  cured  her 
of  talking  politics  to  me. 

Listening  to  the  English  pastor  heating  himself 
over  the  Licensing  Bill  which,  with  all  politics,  is 
surely  as  distinctly  outside  the  pastoral  province 
as  it  is  outside  the  woman's,  I  remembered  this 
earlier  success,  and  not  caring  to  stand  there 
unnoticed  any  longer  thought  I  would  repeat  it. 
I  therefore  began  to  laugh,  gently  at  first,  as 
though  tickled  by  my  thoughts,  then  more  heartily. 

They  all  stopped  to  look  at  me. 

"What  is  the  joke,  Baron?"  asked  Menzies- 
Legh,  scowling  up. 

"Forgive  me.  Pastor,"  said  I,  taking  off  my 
hat  and  bowing  —  he  for  his  part  only  stared  — 
"but  we  are  accustomed  in  my  country  (which, 
thank  God,  is  Germany!)  never  to  connect  clergy- 
men with  politics,  the  inevitable  wranglings  of 
which  make  them  ill-suited  as  a  study  for  men 
whose  calling  is  purely  that  of  peace.  So  firmly 
is  this  feeling  rooted  in  our  natures  that  it  is  as 
amusing  to  me  to  see  a  gentleman  of  your  pro- 
fession deeply  interested  in  such  questions  as  it 
would  be  to  see  —  to  see " 


THE  CARAVANERS  247 

I  cast  about  for  a  simile,  but  nothing  occurred 
to  me  at  the  moment  (and  they  were  all  sitting 
waiting)  than  the  rose  and  inkpot  one,  so  I  had 
to  take  that. 

And  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  just  as  obtusely  as 
the  little  bride  of  years  ago,  asked,  "But  is  that 
amusing?" 

Before  I  could  reply  Menzies-Legh  got  up 
and  said  he  must  write  some  letters;  the  pastor 
got  up  too  and  said  he  must  hurry  off  to  a  class; 
and  Lord  Sigismund,  as  I  approached  the  vacated 
chair  next  to  him,  and  was  about  to  drop  into  it, 
said  he  felt  sure  Menzies-Legh  had  no  stamps, 
and  he  must  go  and  lend  him  some. 

Looking  up  from  the  grass  on  which  she  still 
sat,  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  patted  it  and  said,  "Come 
and  sit  on  this  nice  soft  stuff,  dear  Baron.  I  think 
men  are  tiresome  things,  don't  you  ?  Always 
rushing  off  somewhere.  Tell  me  about  the  rose 
and  the  inkpot.  I  do  see,  I  think,  that  they're  — 
they're  funny.  Why  did  the  vicar  remind  you  of 
them  ?     Come  and  sit  on  the  grass  and  tell  me." 

But  I  had  no  desire  to  sit  on  grass  with  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  as  though  we  were  a  row  of  turtle 
doves,  so  I  merely  said  I  did  not  like  grass,  and 
bowing  slightly,  walked  away. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  next  day  one  of  those  unfortunate  inci- 
dents happened  which  may,  of  course, 
happen  to  anybody,  but  really  need  not  have 
happened  just  to  me. 

We  left  our  camp  at  twelve,  after  the  usual 
feverish  endeavour  to  start  much  earlier,  the 
caravans  as  usual  nearly  capsizing  getting  out  to 
the  field,  and  breaking,  also  as  usual,  in  their 
plungings  several  hitherto  unbroken  articles,  and 
with  the  wind  and  dust  in  our  faces  and  gray, 
lowering  clouds  over  our  heads  we  resumed  our 
daily  race  after  pleasure. 

The  Sunday  had  been  fine  throughout,  and 
there  had  been  dew  and  stars  at  the  end  of  it 
which,  together  with  windlessness,  made  us  expect 
a  fine  Monday.  But  it  was  nothing  of  the  sort. 
Monday  provided  the  conditions  I  always  now 
associate  with  caravaning  —  a  high  wind,  a  threat- 
ening sky,  clouds  of  dust,  and  a  hard  white  road. 

The  day  began  badly  and  continued  badly,  so 
that  even  writing  about  it  at  this  distance  I  drop 
unconsciously  into  a  fretful  tone.  Perhaps  our 
dinner  at  the  inn  on  the  Sunday  had  been  more 

248 


THE  CARAVANERS  249 

than  constitutions  used  to  starvation  could  sud- 
denly endure,  or  perhaps  some  of  us  may  have 
eaten  beyond  the  limits  of  discretion,  remembering 
that  another  week  was  to  pass  before  the  next 
real  meal,  and  these,  becoming  cross,  had  infected 
the  rest;  anyhow  on  Monday  troubles  seemed  to 
accumulate,  beginning  with  a  bill  from  the  farmer 
for  the  field  and  care  of  the  horses  of  a  most  exorbi- 
tant nature,  going  on  to  the  losing  of  various  things 
in  the  hasty  packing  up,  continuing  with  the  hurt- 
ing of  Menzies-Legh's  foot  owing  to  his  folly  in 
placing  it  where  the  advancing  hoof  of  my  horse 
was  bound  to  go  and  with  his  being  in  conse- 
quence unable  to  do  his  proper  share  of  work,  and 
ending  with  the  unfortunate  incident  I  referred  to 
above  and  shall  presently  relate. 

Menzies-Legh,  indeed,  was  strangely  irritable. 
Perhaps  his  foot  hurt  him,  but  he  ought  not  to 
have  minded  that,  considering,  as  I  told  him,  it 
was  nobody's  fault  but  his  own.  I  was  leading 
the  horse  at  the  moment,  and  saw  Menzies-Legh's 
foot  but  never  dreamed  he  would  not  remove  it 
in  time,  and  you  cannot,  as  I  said  to  him,  blame 
a  dumb  animal. 

"Certainly  not,"  agreed  Menzies-Legh;  but 
with  a  singular  gloom. 

And  when  I  saw  the  exorbitance  of  the  bill 
I  felt  bound  to  point  out  to  him  that  strict  honesty 
did  not  seem  to  be  characteristic  of  his  country- 


250  THE  CARAVANERS 

men,  and  to  enlarge  on  the  difference  between 
them  and  my  own,  and  that  seemed  to  irritate 
him  too,  though  he  said  nothing. 

Seeing  this  suppressed  irritation  I  sought  to 
remove  it  by  reminding  him  of  his  wealth,  and 
of  how  the  rapacity  of  the  various  farmers  would 
at  the  worst  only  mean  for  him  one  stove  the 
less  for  one  undeserving  old  woman  the  fewer; 
but  even  that  did  not  cheer  him  —  he  was  and 
remained  in  a  bad  temper.  So  that,  vexed  as  I 
was  myself  at  the  expense  of  the  holiday  that 
was  to  have  been  so  cheap,  I  could  not  prevent  a 
temporary  good-humour  taking  possession  of  me, 
which  is  the  invariable  effect  produced  on  me  by 
other  people's  crossness.  Even  then,  with  his 
hurt  foot,  Menzies-Legh  was  such  a  slave  to  duty 
that  while  I  was  in  the  very  act  of  talking  the 
recollection  of  something  he  ought  to  do  made 
him  struggle  up  from  the  low  chair  and  rugs  in 
which  his  wife  had  carefully  placed  him,  and  limp 
away;  and  I  saw  no  more  of  him  for  a  long  while 
beyond  an  occasional  glimpse  of  his  sallow  visage 
at  the  window  in  front  of  his  van,  where  he  sat  all 
day  in  silence  driving  his  horse. 

Behold  us,  then,  crawling  along  an  ugly  high- 
road with  our  mouths  full  of  dust. 

The  weather  was  alternately  hot  and  cold,  but 
uninterruptedly  windy,  and  rain  threatened  to 
descend  on  us  and  actually  did  as  the  afternoon 


THE  CARAVANERS  251 

wore  on.  My  hearers  must  remember  that  in 
caravaning  afternoons  wear  on  and  mornings 
merge  into  them  with  no  such  thing  as  a  real 
meal  throughout  their  entire  length.  Long  before 
this  I  had  reaHzed  that  plums  were  to  be  my 
portion:  plums,  or  bananas,  or  very  green  apples, 
mitigated  by  a  biscuit  unless  biscuits  chanced  to 
be  scarce  (in  which  case  the  ladies  got  them),  at 
a  time  of  day  when  the  rest  of  Europe  was  sitting 
down  comfortably  to  its  luncheon;  and  I  had 
learned  to  acquiesce  in  this  as  I  acquiesced  in  all 
the  other  privations,  for  I  saw  for  myself  that  it 
was  impossible  to  arrange  a  cooked  meal  except 
before  leaving  or  after  arriving  in  camp.  A 
reasonable  man  is  silent  before  the  impossible; 
still,  plums  are  poor  things  to  march  on.  March 
on  them,  however,  I  had  to,  and  Hunger  (a  most 
unpleasant  and  reverberating  companion)  came 
too,  and  marched  with  me  every  day. 

Well,  I  was  often  glad  at  this  time  that  my  poor 
Marie-Luise  was  spared  her  silver  wedding  jour- 
ney, and  that  a  more  robust  and  far  less  deserving 
wife  went  through  it  in  her  stead.  Marie-Luise 
was  a  most  wifely  wife,  with  no  whalebone  (if  I 
may  so  express  it)  either  about  her  clothes  or  her 
character.  All  was  soft,  womanly,  overflowing. 
Touch  her,  and  you  left  a  dimple.  Bring  your 
pressure,  even  the  slightest,  to  bear  anywhere  on 
her  mind,  and  it  immediately  gave  way. 


252  THE  CARAVANERS 

"But  do  you  like  that  sort  of  thing?'*  asked 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  to  whom,  as  we  plodded 
along  that  day,  I  was  talking  in  this  reminiscent 
strain  for  want  of  a  better  companion. 

Ahead  walked  Edelgard,  visibly  slimmer, 
younger,  moving  quickly  and  easily  in  her  short 
skirt  and  new  activity.  It  was  this  figure  —  hardly 
now  at  a  distance  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
figures  of  the  scanty  sisters  —  walking  before  me 
that  made  me  think  with  tenderness  of  Marie- 
Luise.  Edelgard  was  behaving  badly,  and  when 
I  told  her  so  at  night  in  our  caravan  she  did  not 
answer.  At  home  she  used  to  express  immediate 
penitence;  here  she  either  said  nothing,  or  said 
short  things  that  reminded  me  of  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh,  little  odd  sentences  quite  unlike  her  usual 
style  and  annoyingly  difficult  to  reply  to.  And  the 
more  she  behaved  in  this  manner  the  more  did  my 
thoughts  go  back  regretfully  to  my  gentle  and 
yielding  first  wife.  Sometimes,  I  recollect,  those 
twenty  years  with  her  had  seemed  long;  but  that 
was  because,  firstly,  twenty  years  are  long,  and 
secondly,  because  we  are  none  of  us  perfect,  and 
thirdly,  because  a  wife,  unless  she  is  careful,  is  apt 
to  get  on  to  one's  nerves.  But  how  preferable  is 
gentleness  to  an  aggressive  activity  of  mind  and 
body.  How  annoying  to  see  one's  wife  striding 
on  ahead  with  an  ease  I  could  not  imitate  and 
therefore  in  itself  a  slight  on  her  husband.    A 


THE  CARAVANERS  253 

man  wants  a  wife  who  sits  still,  and  not  only  still 
but  on  the  same  chair  every  day  so  that  he  knows 
where  to  find  her  should  he  happen  to  want  any- 
thing. Marie-Luise  was  a  very  calm  sitter;  she 
never  moved,  except  to  follow  the  then  Clothilde 
about.  Only  her  hands  moved,  in  a  tireless 
guiding  of  the  needle  through  those  of  my  under- 
garments which  had  become  defective. 

"But  do  you  like  that  sort  of  thing?"  asked 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  unsympathetic  as  usual.  Her 
gentle  sister  would  have  coo'd  an  interested  Oh .? 
and  I  would  have  felt  soothed  and  understood. 

"Like  what?"  I  asked  rather  peevishly,  for 
it  occurred  to  me  at  that  moment  as  I  watched  the 
figures  in  front  —  my  wife  and  Jellaby  and  Frau 
von  Eckthum  —  that  I  had  not  had  a  word  with 
the  latter  since  the  walk  back  from  church  more 
than  twenty-four  hours  previously,  and  that  her 
sister,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed  never  to  leave 
my  side. 

"Calm  sitters,"  said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  "and 
dimples  all  over  one's  mind  wherever  you  touch 
it.  I  suppose  when  you  used  to  remove  the 
pressure  they  slowly  filled  out  again.  It  rather 
makes  one  think  of  india-rubber,  doesn't  it  ? " 

"A  wife's  first  duty  is  to  be  submissive,"  said 
I,  conscious  that  I  had  the  Prayer-book  behind 
me  and  waving  side  issues,  such  as  india-rubber, 
resolutely  aside. 


254  THE  CARAVANERS 

"Yes,  yes,"  agreed  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh, 
"but " 

"And  I  am  thankful  to  say,"  I  continued 
quickly,  for  she  was  about  to  add  something  that 
I  was  sure  was  going  to  be  aggressive,  "I  am 
thankful  to  say  I  was  very  fortunate  in  my  Marie- 
Luise." 

"And  very  fortunate  in  your  Edelgard,"  said 
she  —  they  had  got  to  Christian  names  the 
second  day. 

"Of  course,"  said  I. 

"She  is  a  person  everybody  must  love,"  said  she. 

"Undoubtedly,"  said  I. 

"So  adaptable  and  quick,"  continued  the  tact- 
less lady. 

"You  are  very  good,"  said  I,  raising  my  Panama 
in  stiff  acknowledgment  of  these  compliments. 

"And  so  unselfish,"  said  she. 

I  bowed  again,  more  stiffly  than  before. 

"Look  how  she  cuts  all  the  bread  and  butter." 

I  bowed  again. 

"  Look  how  she  makes  the  coffee." 

I  bowed  again. 

"Look  how  cheerful  she  is." 

I  bowed  again. 

"And  how  clever,  dear  Baron." 

Clever  ?  That  indeed  was  a  new  way  of  look- 
ing at  poor  Edelgard.  I  could  not  at  this  repress 
a  smile  of  amusement.     "I  am  gratified  that  you 


THE  CARAVANERS  255 

should  have  so  good  an  opinion  of  my  wife,"  I 
said;  and  wished  much  to  add,  "But  what  is  my 
wife  to  you  that  you  should  take  it  upon  yourself 
to  praise  her?  Is  she  not  solely  and  exclusively 
my  property  ? " 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  however,  was  absolutely 
rebuke-proof,  and  had  so  many  answers  ready  that 
I  thought  it  better  not  to  bring  them  upon  me  in 
crowds.  I  did  though  rather  cleverly  turn  the 
tables  upon  her,  and  at  the  same  time  bring  the 
conversation  to  a  point  which  really  interested  me, 
by  beginning  to  praise  her  sister. 

"It  is  good  of  you,"  I  said,  "to  commend  my 
family.     In  return  permit  me  to  praise  yours." 

"What  —  John?"  she  asked,  with  a  quick 
look  and  something  of  a  smile.  (John  was  her 
ill-conditioned  husband.)  "Are  you  —  do  you 
like  him  so  much?" 

Now  as  I  thought  John  a  very  poor  thing 
indeed  this  question  would  have  seemed  difficult 
to  answer  to  any  one  less  ready. 

"Like,"  said  I,  with  conspicuously  careful 
courtesy,  "is  not  at  all  the  word  that  describes 
my  feelings  toward  your  husband." 

She  looked  at  me  sideways,  then  dropped  her 
eyelashes.  "Dear  Baron,"  she  murmured,  "how 
very " 

"I  was  not,  however,"  I  interrupted  hastily, 
for  I  felt  the  ice  would  not  bear  much  skating 


256  THE  CARAVANERS 

on,  "thinking  of  him.  I  was  referring  to  your 
sister/* 

"Oh?"  said  she  —  almost  Hke  the  charming 
relative  herself. 

"She  is  of  course,  and  as  you  know,  delight- 
ful. But  of  all  her  delightfulness  do  you  know 
what  strikes  me  as  most  delightful?" 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  watching  me 
with  obvious  interest. 

"Her  conversation." 

"Yes.     She  is  a  good  talker,"  she  admitted. 

"What  I  call  a  perfect  talker,"  said  I  enthu- 
siastically. 

"I  know.     Everybody  says  so." 

"Never  too  much,"  I  said  meaningly. 

"Oh?"  said  she.  "You  think  so?  I  rather 
imagined "     She  stopped. 

"So  extremely  sympathetic,"  I  continued. 

"And  so  amusing,"  said  she. 

"Amusing?"  said  I,  slightly  surprised,  for  I 
must  say  I  had  not  till  then  considered  it  pos- 
sible to  be  amusing  on  one  single  note,  however 
flute-like. 

"Even  more  —  really  witty.  Don't  you  think 
so?" 

"Witty?"    said  I,  with  increased  surprise. 

She  looked  at  me  and  smiled.  "You  evidently 
have  not  found  her  so,"  she  said. 

"No.     Nor  do  I  care  for  wit  in  ladies.     Your 


THE  CARAVANERS  257 

sister  has  been  everything  that  is  perfect  —  sym- 
pathetic, an  interested  listener,  one  who  shares 
one's  opinions  completely,  and  who  never  says  a 
word  more  than  is  absolutely  necessary;  but 
thank  goodness  I  have  not  yet  observed  her 
descend  to  the  unwomanliness  of  wit.'* 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  looked  at  me  as  though 
I  were  being  funny.  It  was  a  way  she  had,  and 
one  which  I  particularly  disliked;  for  surely  few 
things  are  more  offensive  than  to  be  treated  as 
amusing  when  you  are  not.  "Evidently,"  said 
she,  "you  have  a  soothing  and  restraining  influence 
over  Betti,  dear  Baron.  Has  she,  then,  never 
made  you  laugh  ?" 

"Certainly  not,"  said  I  with  conviction. 

"But  look  at  Mr.  Jellaby  —  do  you  see  how 
he  is  laughing?" 

"At  his  own  dull  jokes,  I  should  say,"  I  said, 
bestowing  a  momentary  glance  on  the  slouching 
figure  in  front.  His  face  was  turned  toward 
Frau  von  Eckthum,  and  he  was  certainly  laugh- 
ing, and  to  an  unbecoming  extent. 

"Oh,  not  a  bit.     He  is  laughing  at  Betti." 

"I  have  heard  your  sister,"  said  I  emphatically, 
"talking  in  general  company  —  such  company, 
that  is,  as  this  tour  afi^ords  —  and  she  has  done  it 
invariably  seriously,  and  rather  poetically,  but 
never  has  more  than  smiled  herself,  and  never 
raised  that  doubtful  tribute,  a  laugh." 


258  THE  CARAVANERS 

"That/*  said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  "was  because 
you  were  there,  dear  Baron.  I  tell  you,  you 
soothe  and  restrain.'* 

I  bowed.  *'I  am  glad,"  I  said,  "that  I  exert 
a  good  influence  over  the  party." 

*'Oh,  very,"  said  she,  her  eyelashes  cast  down. 
"  But  what  does  Betti  talk  to  you  about,  then  ? 
The  scenery  ? " 

"Your  tactful  sister,  my  dear  lady,  does  not 
talk  at  all.  Or  rather,  what  she  says  consists 
entirely  of  one  word,  spoken  indeed  with  so  great 
a  variety  of  expression  that  it  expands  into  volumes. 
It  is  that  that  I  admire  so  profoundly  in  her. 
If  all  ladies  would  take  a  lesson " 

"But  —  what  word?"  interrupted  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  who  had  been  listening  with  a 
growing  astonishment  on  her  face  —  astonishment, 
I  suppose,  that  so  near  a  relative  should  be  also 
a  person  of  tact  and  delicacy. 

"Your  sister  simply  says  Oh.  It  sounds  a 
small  thing,  and  slightly  bald  stated  in  this  manner, 
yet  all  I  can  say  is  that  if  every  woman " 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  however,  made  a  little 
exclamation  and  bent  down  hastily. 

"Dear  Baron,"  she  said,  "I've  got  a  thorn  or 
something  in  my  shoe.  I'll  wait  for  our  caravan 
to  come  up,  and  get  in  and  take  it  out.  Auf 
Wiedersehen." 

And  she  fell  behind. 


THE  CARAVANERS  259 

This  was  the  first  really  agreeable  conversation 
I  had  had  with  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh.  I  walked 
on  alone  for  some  miles,  turning  it  over  with 
pleasure.  It  was  of  course  pleasant  to  reflect 
that  I  alone  of  the  party  had  a  beneficial  influence 
over  her  whom  her  sister  was  entitled  to  describe 
as  Betti;  and  it  was  also  pleasant  (though  only 
what  was  to  be  expected)  that  I  should  exercise  a 
good  influence  over  the  entire  party.  "Sooth- 
ing" was  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh's  word.  Well,  what 
was  happening  was  that  these  English  people 
were  being  leavened  hourly  and  ceaselessly  with 
German  yeast;  and  now  that  it  had  been  put 
into  so  many  words  I  did  see  that  I  soothed  them, 
for  I  had  observed  that  whenever  I  approached 
a  knot  of  them,  however  loudly  it  had  been  laugh- 
ing and  talking  it  sank  into  a  sudden  calm  —  it 
was  soothed,  in  fact  —  and  presently  dispersed 
about  its  various  duties. 

But  nothing  occurred  after  this  that  day  that 
was  pleasant.  I  plodded  along  alone.  Rain  came 
down  and  mud  increased,  but  still  I  plodded. 
It  was  pretended  to  me  that  we  were  unusually 
unlucky  in  the  weather  and  that  England  does 
not  as  a  rule  have  a  summer  of  the  sort;  I, 
however,  believe  that  it  does,  regularly  every 
year,  as  a  special  punishment  of  Providence 
for  its  being  there  at  all,  or  how  should  the 
thing  be  so  very  green  ?     Mud   and   greenness, 


26o  THE  CARAVANERS 

mud  and  greenness,  that  is  all  the  place  is 
made  of,  thought  I,  trudging  between  the  wet 
hedges  after  an  hour's  rain  had  set  everything 
dripping. 

Stolidly  I  followed,  at  my  horse's  side,  whither 
the  others  led.  In  the  rain  we  passed  through 
villages  which  the  ladies  in  every  tone  of  childish 
enthusiasm  cried  out  were  delightful,  Edelgard 
joining  in,  Edelgard  indeed  loudest,  Edelgard  in 
fact  falling  in  love  in  the  silliest  way  with  every 
thatched  and  badly  repaired  cottage  that  happened 
to  have  a  show  of  flowers  in  its  garden,  and  saying 
—  I  heard  her  with  my  own  ears  —  that  she  would 
like  to  live  in  one.  What  new  affectation  was  this, 
I  asked  myself?  Not  one  of  our  friends  who 
would  not  (very  properly)  leave  off  visiting  us 
if  we  looked  as  poor  as  thatch.  To  get  and  to  keep 
friends  the  very  least  that  you  must  have  is  a 
handsome  sofa-set  in  a  suitably  sized  drawing- 
room.  Edelgard  till  then  had  been  justly  proud 
of  hers,  which  cost  a  sum  so  round  that  it  seems 
written  in  velvet  letters  all  over  it.  It  is  made  of 
the  best  of  everything  —  wood,  stuffing,  covers, 
and  springs,  and  has  a  really  beautiful  walnut- 
wood  table  in  the  middle,  with  its  carved  and 
shapely  legs  resting  on  a  square  of  carpet  so  good 
that  many  a  guest  has  exclaimed  in  tones  of  envy 
as  her  feet  sank  into  it,  "But  dearest  Baroness, 
where  and  how  did  you  secure  so  truly  glorious  a 


THE  CARAVANERS  261 

carpet  ?     It  must  have  cost ! "     And  eyes  and 

hands  uplifted  complete  the  sentence. 

To  think  of  Edelgard  with  this  set  and  all  that 
it  implies  in  the  background  of  her  consciousness 
affecting  a  willingness  to  leave  it,  tried  my  patience 
a  good  deal;  and  about  three  o'clock,  having  all 
collected  in  a  baker's  shop  in  a  wet  village  called 
Salehurst  for  the  purpose  of  eating  buns  (no 
camp  being  in  immediate  prospect),  I  told  her  in 
a  low  tone  how  ill  enthusiasms  about  things  like 
thatch  sit  on  a  woman  who  is  going  to  be  thirty 
next  birthday. 

"Dear  wife,"  I  begged,  "do  endeavour  not 
to  be  so  calf-like.  If  you  think  these  pretences 
pretty  let  me  tell  you  you  are  mistaken.  The 
others  will  not  tell  you  so,  because  the  others  are 
not  your  husband.  Nobody  is  taken  in,  nobody 
believes  you.  Everybody  sees  you  are  old  enough 
to  be  sensible.  But,  not  being  your  husband,  they 
are  obliged  to  be  polite  and  feign  to  agree  and 
sympathize,  while  they  are  really  secretly  lament- 
ing your  inability  to  adjust  your  conversation  to 
your  age. 

This  I  said  between  two  buns;  and  would  have 
said  more  had  not  the  eternal  Jellaby  thrust  him- 
self between  us.  Jellaby  was  always  coming 
between  man  and  wife,  and  this  time  he  did  it 
with  a  glass  of  fizzy  lemonade.  Edelgard  refused 
it,    and    Jellaby    (pert    Socialist)    thanked    her 


262  THE  CARAVANERS 

earnestly  for  doing  so,  saying  he  would  be  wholly 
unable  to  respect  a  woman  who  drank  fizzy 
lemonade. 

Respect  a  woman  ?  What  a  tone  to  adopt  to 
a  married  lady  whose  husband  is  within  ear-shot. 
And  what  could  Edelgard's  tone  have  been  to  him 
before  such  a  one  on  his  side  came  within  the 
range  of  the  possible  ? 

"And  I  must  warn  you,"  I  continued  with  a 
slightly  less  pronounced  patience,  "very  seriously 
against  the  consequences  likely  to  accrue  if  you 
allow  a  person  of  Jellaby's  sex  and  standing  to 
treat  you  with  familiarity.  Familiarity  and  dis- 
respect are  one  and  the  same  thing.  They  are 
inseparable.  They  are,  in  fact,  twins.  Put  not 
ordinary  twins  —  rather  that  undividable  sort 
of  which  there  have  been  luckily  only  a  few 
examples " 

"Dear  Otto,  do  have  another  bun,"  said  she, 
pointing  to  these  articles  in  a  pile  on  the  counter; 
and  as  I  paused  to  choose  (by  means  of  squeezing) 
the  freshest,  she,  although  aware  I  had  not  finished 
speaking,  slipped  away. 

I  begin  to  doubt  as  I  proceed  with  my  narrative 
whether  any  but  relations  had  better  be  admitted 
to  the  readings  aloud  after  all.  Friends  have 
certain  Judas-like  qualities,  and  might,  perhaps, 
having  listened  to  these  sketches  of  Edelgard  with 
every  appearance  of  sympathy,  go  away  and  mis- 


THE  CARAVANERS  263* 

represent  me.  Relations  on  the  other  hand  are 
very  sincere  and  never  pretend  (which  is  why  one 
prefers  friends,  I  sometimes  think)  and  they  have, 
besides,  the  family  feeling  which  prevents  their 
discussing  each  other  to  the  unrelated.  It  is 
possible  that  I  may  restrict  my  invitations  solely 
to  them;  and  yet  it  seems  a  pity  not  to  let  my 
friends  in  as  well.  Have  they  not  often  suffered  in 
the  same  way  too  ?  Have  they  not  wives  them- 
selves ?     God  help  us  all. 

Continuing  our  march  in  the  rain  we  left  Sale- 
hurst  (where  I  earnestly  but  vainly  suggested 
we  should  camp  in  the  back-yard  of  the  inn)  and 
went  toward  Bodiam  —  a  ruined  castle,  explained 
Lord  Sigismund  coming  and  walking  with  me, 
of  great  interest  and  antiquity,  rising  out  of  a 
moat  which  at  that  time  of  the  year  would  be 
filled  with  white  and  yellow  water-lilies. 

He  knew  it  well  and  talked  a  good  deal  about  it, 
its  position,  its  preservation,  and  especially  its 
lilies.  But  I  was  much  too  wet  to  care  about  lilies. 
A  tight  roof  and  a  shut  window  would  have  inter- 
ested me  far  more.  However,  it  was  agreeable  to 
converse  with  him,  and  I  soon  deftly  turned  the 
conversation  while  at  the  same  time  linking  it,  as 
it  were,  on  to  the  next  subject,  by  remarking  that 
his  serene  Aunt  in  Germany  must  also  be  very 
old.  He  vaguely  said  she  was,  and  showed  a 
tendency  to  get  back  to  the  ruins  nearer  at  hand, 


264  THE  CARAVANERS 

which  I  dodged  by  observing  that  she  must  make 
a  perfect  picture  in  her  castle  in  Thuringia,  the 
background  being  so  harmonious,  such  an  appro- 
priate setting  for  an  old  lady,  for,  as  is  well  known, 
the  castle  grounds  contain  the  most  magnificent 
ruins  in  Europe.  "And  your  august  Aunt,  my 
dear  Lord  Sigismund,"  I  continued,  *'is,  I  am  cer- 
tain, not  one  whit  less  magnificent  than  the  rest." 

"Well,  I  don't  think  Aunt  Lizzie  actually 
crumbles  yet,  you  know.  Baron,'*  said  Lord  Sigis- 
mund  smiling.  "You  should  see  her  going  about 
in  gaiters  looking  after  things." 

"There  is  nothing  I  would  like  better  than  to 
see  her,"  I  replied  with  enthusiasm,  for  this  was 
surely  almost  an  invitation. 

He,  however,  made  no  direct  answer  but  got 
back  to  the  Bodiam  ruins  again,  and  again  I  broke 
the  thread  of  what  threatened  to  become  a  narrative 
by  inquiring  how  long  it  took  to  go  by  train  from 
London  to  his  father  the  Duke's  place  in  Cornwall. 

"Oh,  it's  at  the  end  of  the  world,"  said  he. 

"I  know,  I  know.  But  my  wife  and  I  would 
not  like  to  leave  England  without  having  journeyed 
thither  and  looked  at  a  place  so  famous  according 
to  Baedeker  both  for  its  size,  its  splendour,  and 
its  associations.  Of  course,  my  dear  Lord  Sigis- 
mund,"  I  added  with  the  utmost  courtesy,  "we 
expect  nothing.  We  would  be  content  to  go  as 
the  merest  tourists.     In  spite  of  the  length  of  the 


THE  CARAVANERS  265 

journey  we  should  not  hesitate  to  put  up  at  the 
inn  which  is  no  doubt  not  far  from  the  ducal 
gates.  There  should  be  no  trading  on  what  has 
become,  certainly  on  my  side  and  I  hope  and 
believe  on  yours,  a  warm  friendship." 

"My  dear  Baron,"  said  Lord  Sigismund 
heartily,  "I  agree  entirely  with  you.  Friendship 
should  be  as  warm  as  one  can  possibly  make  it. 
Which  reminds  me  that  I  haven't  asked  poor 
Menzies-Legh  how  his  foot  is  getting  on.  That 
wasn't  very  warm  of  me,  was  it  ?  I  must  go  and 
see  how  he  is." 

And  he  dropped  behind. 

At  this  time  I  was  leading  the  procession  (by 

some  accident  of  the  start  from  the  bun  shop) 

;      and  had  general  orders  to  go  straight  ahead  unless 

f      signalled  to  from  the  rear.     I  went,  accordingly, 

straight  ahead  down  a  road  running  along  a  high 

ridge,  the  blank  space  of  rain  and  mist  on  either 

side  filled  in  no  doubt  on  more  propitious  days 

by  a  good  view.     Bodiam  lay  below  somewhere 

in  the  flat,  and  we  were  going  there;    for  Mrs. 

Menzies-Legh,  and  indeed  all  the  others  includ- 

I     ing  Edelgard,  wished  (or  pretended  to  wish)  to 

r      see  the  ruins.     I  must  decline  to  believe  in  the 

genuineness  of  such  a  wish  when  expressed,  as  in 

this  case,  by  the  hungry  and  the  wet.     Ruins  are 

very  well,  no  doubt,  but  they  do  come  last.     A 

man  will  not  look  at  a  ruin  if  he  is  honest  until 


266  THE  CARAVANERS 

every  other  instinct,  even  the  smallest,  has  been 
satisfied.  If,  not  having  had  his  dinner,  he  yet 
expresses  eagerness  to  visit  such  things,  then  I 
say  that  that  man  is  a  hypocrite.  To  enjoy  look- 
ing at  the  roofless  must  you  not  first  have  a  roof 
yourself.?  To  enjoy  looking  at  the  empty  must 
you  not  first  be  filled  ?  For  the  roofless  and  the 
empty  to  visit  and  admire  other  roofless  and  other 
empties  seems  to  me  as  barren  as  for  ghosts  to  go 
to  tea  with  ghosts. 

Alone  I  trudged  through  a  dripping  world. 
My  thoughts  from  ruins  and  ghosts  strayed 
naturally  —  for  when  you  are  seventy  there  must 
be  a  good  deal  of  the  ghost  about  you  —  once 
more  to  Lord  Sigismund's  august  and  aged  Aunt 
in  Thuringia,  to  the  almost  invitation  (certainly 
encouragement)  he  had  given  me  to  go  and  behold 
her  in  princely  gaiters,  to  the  many  distinct  advan- 
tages of  having  such  a  lady  on  our  visiting  list, 
to  conjecture  as  to  the  extent  of  the  Duke  her 
brother's  hospitality  should  we  go  down  and  take 
up  our  abode  very  openly  at  the  inn  at  his  gates, 
to  the  pleasantness  (apart  from  every  other  con- 
sideration) of  staying  in  his  castle  after  staying 
in  a  caravan,  and  to  the  interest  of  Storchwerder 
when  it  heard  of  it. 

The  hooting  of  a  yet  invisible  motor  inter- 
rupted these  musings.  It  was  hidden  in  the  mist 
at  first,  but  immediately  loomed  into  view,  coming 


THE  CARAVANERS  267 

down  the  straight  road  toward  me  at  a  terrific 
pace,  coming  along  with  a  rush  and  a  roar,  the 
biggest,  swiftest,  and  most  obviously  expensive 
example  I  had  yet  seen. 

The  road  was  wide,  but  sloped  away  consid- 
erably on  either  side  from  the  crown  of  it,  and 
on  the  crown  of  it  I  walked  with  my  caravan.  It 
was  a  clay  road,  made  slippery  by  the  rain;  did 
these  insolent  vulgarians,  I  asked  myself,  suppose 
I  was  going  to  slide  down  one  side  in  order  to 
make  room  for  them  ?  Room  there  was  plenty 
between  me  in"  the  middle  and  the  gutter  and 
hedge  at  the  sides.  If  there  was  to  be  sliding, 
why  should  it  not  be  they  who  slid  ? 

The  motor,  with  the  effrontery  usual  to  its 
class,  was  right  on  the  top  of  the  road,  in  the 
very  pick  and  middle  of  it.  I  perceived  that 
here  was  my  chance.  No  motor  would  dare  dash 
straight  on  in  the  face  of  so  slow  and  bulky  an 
obstacle  as  a  caravan,  and  I  was  sick  of  them  — 
sick  of  their  dust,  their  smell,  and  their  vulgar 
ostentation.  Also  I  felt  that  all  the  other  members 
of  our  party  would  be  on  my  side,  for  I  have 
related  their  indignant  comments  on  the  slaying 
of  a  pretty  young  woman  by  one  of  these  goggled 
demons.  Therefore  I  kept  on  immovably,  swerv- 
ing not  an  inch  from  the  top  of  the  road. 

The  motor,  seeing  this  and  now  very  near, 
shrieked  with  childish  rage  (it  had  a  voice  like 


268  THE  CARAVANERS 

an  angry  woman)  at  my  daring  to  thwart  it.  I 
remained  firmly  on  my  course,  though  I  was 
obhged  to  push  up  the  horse  which  actually  tried 
of  itself  to  make  way.  The  motor,  still  shrieking, 
saw  nothing  for  it  but  to  abandon  the  heights  to 
me,  and  endeavoured  to  pass  on  the  slope.  As 
it  did  it  skidded  violently,  and  after  a  short  interval 
of  upheaval  and  activity  among  its  occupants 
subsided  into  calm  and  the  gutter. 

An  old  gentleman  with  a  very  red  face  struggled 
into  view  from  among  many  wrappers. 

I  waited  till  he  had  finally  emerged,  and  then 
addressed  him  impressively  and  distinctly  from 
the  top  of  the  road.  "Road  hog,"  I  said,  "let 
this  be  a  lesson  to  you." 

I  would  have  said  more,  he  being  unable  to 
get  away  and  I  holding,  so  to  speak,  the  key  to 
the  situation,  if  the  officious  Jellaby  and  the  too 
kind  Lord  Sigismund  had  not  come  running  up 
from  behind  breathlessly  eager  to  render  an 
assistance  that  was  obviously  not  required. 

The  old  gentleman,  shaking  himself  free  from 
his  cloak  and  rising  in  the  car,  was  in  the  act  of 
addressing  me  in  his  turn,  for  his  eyes  were  fixed 
on  me  and  his  mouth  was  opening  and  shutting 
in  the  spasms  preliminary  to  heated  conversation 
(all  of  which  I  observed  calmly,  leaning  against 
my  horse's  shaft  and  feeling  myself  to  be  in  the 
right)  when  Lord  Sigismund  and  Jellaby  arrived. 


O 


THE  CARAVANERS  269' 

"I  do  hope  you've  not  been  hurt "  began 

Lord  Sigismund  with  his  usual  concern  for  those 
to  whom  anything  had  happened. 

The  old  gentleman  gasped.  "What?  Sidge  ? 
It's  your  lot?"    he  exclaimed. 

"Hullo,  Dad!"  was  Lord  Sigismund's  imme- 
diate and  astonished  response. 

It  was  the  Duke. 

Now  was  not  that  very  unfortunate  ? 


CHAPTER  XV 

I  HAVE  observed  on  frequent  occasions  in  a  life 
now  long  enough  to  have  afforded  many,  a 
tendency  on  the  part  of  Providence  to  punish 
the  just  man  because  he  has  been  just.  Not  one 
to  criticize  Providence  if  I  can  avoid  it,  I  do  feel 
that  this  is  to  be  deplored.  It  is  also  inexpHcable. 
Marie-Luise  died,  I  recollect,  the  very  day  I  had 
had  occasion  to  speak  sharply  to  her,  which  almost 
looked,  I  remember  thinking  at  the  time,  like 
malice.  I  was  aware,  however,  that  it  was  only 
Providence.  My  poor  wife  was  being  wielded  as 
the  instrument  which  was  to  put  me  in  the  wrong, 
and  I  need  not  say  to  you,  my  friends,  who  knew 
her  and  know  me  and  were  witness  of  the  har- 
mony of  our  married  life,  that  her  death  had 
nothing  to  do  with  my  rebukes.  You  all  remem- 
ber she  was  in  perfect  health  that  day,  and  was 
snatched  from  my  side  late  in  the  afternoon  by 
means  of  a  passing  droschke.  The  droschke 
passed  over  her,  and  left  me,  with  incredible 
suddenness,  a  widower  on  the  pavement.  This 
might  have  happened  to  anybody,  but  what  was 
so  peculiarly  unfortunate  was  that  I  had  been 

270 


THE  CARAVANERS  271 

forced,  if  I  would  do  my  duty,  to  rebuke  her  during 
the  hours  immediately  preceding  the  occurrence. 
Of  course,  I  could  not  know  about  the  droschke. 
I  could  not  know  about  it;  I  did  my  duty;  and  by 
the  evening  I  was  the  most  crushed  of  men,  a  prey 
to  the  cruelest  regrets  and  self-reproaches.  Yet 
had  I  not  acted  aright  t  Conscience  told  me  Yes. 
Alas,  how  little  could  Conscience  do  for  my  com- 
fort then!  In  time  I  got  over  it,  and  regained 
the  calm  balance  of  mind  that  saw  life  would  stand 
still  if  we  feared  to  speak  out  because  people 
might  die.  Indeed,  I  saw  this  so  clearly  that  I 
not  only  married  again  within  the  year,  but  made 
up  my  mind  that  no  past  experience  should 
intimidate  me  into  not  doing  my  duty  by  my 
second  wife;  I  assumed,  that  is,  from  the  first 
my  proper  position  in  the  household  as  its  guide 
and  censor,  and  up  to  now  I  am  glad  to  say  Prov- 
idence has  left  Edelgard  alone,  and  has  not  used 
her  (except  in  minor  matters)  as  a  weapon  for 
making  me  regret  I  have  done  right. 

But  here,  now,  was  this  business  with  the 
Duke.  Nothing  could  have  been  warmer  and 
more  cordial  than  my  feelings  toward  him  and 
his  family.  I  admired  and  liked  his  son;  I  infin- 
itely respected  his  sister;  and  I  only  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  admire,  like,  and  respect  himself. 
Such  was  my  attitude  toward  him.  Toward 
motors  it  was  equally  irreproachable.     I  detested 


272  THE  CARAVANERS 

their  barbarous  methods,  and  was  as  anxious  as 
any  other  decent  man  to  give  them  a  lesson  and 
help  avenge  their  many  unhappy  victims.  Now 
came  Providence,  stepping  in  between  these  two 
meritorious  intentions,  and  frustrating  both  at 
one  blow  by  the  simple  expedient  of  combining 
the  Duke  with  the  motor.  It  confounded  me; 
it  punished  me;  it  put  me  in  the  wrong;  and  for 
*  what  ?     For  doing  what  I  knew  was  right. 

"No  one,  not  even  a  pastor,  can  expect  me 
to  like  that  sort  of  thing,"  I  complained  to  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh,  to  whom  I  had  been  talking,  owing 
to  her  sister's  being  somewhere  else. 

"No,"  said  she;  and  looked  at  me  reflectively  as 
though  tempted  to  say  more.  But  (no  doubt 
remembering  my  dislike  of  talkative  women)  she 
refrained. 

I  was  sitting  under  one  of  the  ruined  arches 
of  Bodiam  Castle  (never,  my  friends,  go  there; 
it  is  a  terribly  damp  place),  with  the  lean  lady, 
while  the  others  peered  about  as  well  as  they 
could,  being  too  tired  to  do  anything  but  sit, 
and  weary,  too,  of  spirit,  for  I  am  a  sensitive  man, 
and  had  had  a  troubled  day.  The  evening  had 
done  that  which  English  people  call  drawing  in. 
Lord  Sigismund  was  gone  —  gone  with  his 
unreasonably  incensed  father  in  the  motor  to 
some  place  whose  name  I  did  not  catch,  and  was 
not  to  be  back  till  the  next  day.     The  others, 


THE  CARAVANERS  273 

including  myself,  had,  after  a  prolonged  search, 
found  a  very  miserable  camp  with  cows  in  it.  It 
was  too  late  to  object  to  anything,  so  there  we 
huddled  round  our  stew-pot  in  an  exposed  field, 
while  the  wind  howled  and  a  fine  rain  fell.  Our 
party  was  oddly  silent  and  cheerless  considering  its 
ordinary  spirits.  No  one  said  it  was  healthy  and 
jolly;  even  the  children  did  not  speak,  and  sat 
buttoned  up  in  mackintoshes,  their  hands  clasped 
round  their  knees,  their  faces,  shining  with  rain, 
set  and  serious.  I  think  the  way  the  Duke  had 
behaved  after  getting  out  of  the  gutter  had 
depressed  them.  It  had  been  a  disagreeable 
scene  —  I  should  say  he  was  a  man  of  a  hot  and 
uncontrolled  temper  —  and  my  apologies  had  been 
useless.  Then  the  supper  took  an  unconscionable 
time  preparing.  For  some  reason  the  chickens 
would  not  boil  (they  missed  Lord  Sigismund's 
persuasive  talent)  and  the  potatoes  could  not 
because  the  stove  on  which  they  stood  went  out 
and  nobody  noticed  it.  How  bleak  and  autumnal 
that  field,  bare  of  trees,  with  the  rain  driving  over 
it,  looked  after  the  unsatisfactory  day  I  cannot 
describe  to  you.  Its  dreariness,  combined  with 
what  had  gone  before,  and  with  the  bad  supper, 
made  me  dislike  it  more  than  any  camp  we  had 
had.  The  thought  that  up  there  on  those  dank 
cow-ridden  heights  we  were  to  spend  the  night, 
while  down  in  Bodiam  lights  twinkled  and  happy 


274  THE  CARAVANERS 

cottagers  undressed  in  rooms  and  went  into 
normal  beds  instead  of  inserting  themselves  side- 
ways into  what  was  in  reality  a  shelf,  was  curiously 
depressing.  And  when,  after  supper,  our  party 
was  washing  up  by  the  flickering  lantern-light, 
with  the  rain  wetting  the  plates  as  quickly  as  they 
were  dried,  I  could  not  refrain  from  saying  as  I 
stood  looking  down  at  them,  "So  this  is  what  is 
called  pleasure." 

Nobody  had  anything  to  say  to  that. 

In  self-defense  we  went  down  later  on,  dark 
and  wild  though  it  was,  to  the  ruins.  Sit  up 
there  in  the  wet  we  could  not,  and  it  was  too 
early  to  go  to  bed.  Nor  could  we  play  at  cards 
in  each  other's  caravans,  because  of  questions  of 
decorum.  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  did,  indeed,  sug- 
gest it,  but  on  my  pointing  this  out  to  her  with  a 
severity  I  was  prepared  to  increase  if  she  had 
made  the  least  opposition,  the  suggestion  was 
dropped.  Forced  to  stay  out-of-doors  we  were 
forced  to  move,  or  rheumatism  would  certainly 
have  claimed  us  for  its  own,  so  we  set  out  once 
again  along  the  muddy  lanes,  leaving  Menzies-Legh 
(who  was  sulking  terribly)  to  mind  the  camp,  and 
trudged  the  two  miles  down  to  the  castle. 

Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  walked  with  me.  Directly 
she  saw  I  was  alone,  the  others  hurrying  on  ahead  at 
a  pace  I  did  not  care  to  keep  up  with,  she  loitered 
behind  till  I  overtook  her  and  walked  with  me. 


THE  CARAVANERS  275 

I  have  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  this 
lady  seemed  to  mark  me  during  the  tour  for 
her  special  prey.  You,  my  hearers,  must  have 
noticed  it  by  now,  for  I  conceal  nothing.  I  can 
safely  say  I  was  not  to  blame,  for  in  no  way  did 
I  encourage  her.  Not  only  must  she  have  been 
over  thirty,  but  more  than  once  she  had  allowed 
herself  to  do  that  which  can  only  be  described 
as  poking  fun  at  me.  Besides,  I  do  not  care  for 
the  type.  I  dislike  the  least  suggestion  of  wiri- 
ness  in  woman;  and  there  was  nothing  of  her 
bodily  (except  wire)  and  far  too  much  intellect- 
ually —  I  mean  so  far  as  a  woman  can  be  intel- 
lectual, which,  of  course,  is  not  far  at  all.  I 
therefore  feel  entirely  conscience-clear,  and  care- 
fully avoiding  any  comments  which  might  give 
the  impression  of  vanity  on  my. part,  merely  state 
the  bare  facts  that  the  lady  was  constantly  at  my 
elbow,  that  my  elbow  was  reluctant,  and  that  no 
other  member  of  the  party  clung  to  it  like  that. 

There  she  sat  with  me,  for  instance,  in  the  ruins, 
pretending  she  was  tired  too,  though  of  course 
she  was  not,  for  never  was  any  one  more  active, 
and  for  want  of  a  better  listener  —  Frau  von 
Eckthum  had  from  the  first  melted  away  among 
the  shadows  —  I  was  obliged  to  talk  to  her  in  the 
above  strain.  However,  one  cannot  really  talk 
to  such  a  woman,  not  really  converse  with  her. 
She  soon  reminded  me  of  this  fact  (which  I  well 


276  THE  CARAVANERS 

knew)  by  inquiring  whether  I  did  not  think  people 
were  very  apt  to  call  that  Providence  which  was 
in  reality  nothing  more  nor  less  than  their  own 
selves  —  "Or,"  she  added  (profanely)  "if  they're 
in  another  mood  they  call  it  the  Devil,  but  it  is 
always  just  themselves." 

Well,  I  had  not  come  through  the  mud  to 
Bodiam  to  be  profane,  so  I  gathered  my  wraps 
about  me  and  prepared  to  go. 

"But  I  do  see  your  point,"  she  said,  noticing 
these  preparations,  and  realizing,  perhaps,  that 
she  had  gone  too  far.  "Things  do  sometimes 
happen  very  unluckily,  and  punishments  are 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  offence.  I  think, 
for  instance,  it  was  perfectly  terrible  for  you  that 
you  should  have  been  scolding  your  wife " 

"Not  scolding.     Rebuking." 

"It*s  the  same  thing " 

"Certainly  not." 

"Rebuking  her,  then,  up  to  the  very  moment 
—  oh,  it  would  have  killed  me!" 

And  she  shivered. 

"My  dear  lady,"  said  I,  slightly  amused,  "a 
man  has  certain  duties,  and  he  performs  them. 
Sometimes  they  are  unpleasant,  and  he  still  per- 
forms them.  If  he  allowed  himself  to  be  killed  each 
time  there  would  be  a  mighty  dearth  of  husbands 
in  the  world,  and  what  would  you  all  do  then  ? " 

Women   however   have   no   sense   of  humour. 


THE  CARAVANERS  277 

and  she  was  unable  to  catch  at  this  straw  of  it 
offered  her  for  the  purpose  of  lightening  the  con- 
versation. On  the  contrary,  she  turned  her  head 
and  looking  at  me  gravely  (pretty  eyes,  wasted) 
she  said,  "But  how  much  better  never,  never 
to  do  your  duty." 

"Really "  I  protested. 

"Yes.     If  it  means  being  unkind." 

"Unkind?  Is  a  mother  unkind  who  rebukes 
her  child?" 

"Oh,  call  it  by  its  proper  name  —  scolding, 
preaching,  advising,  abusing  —  it's  all  unkind, 
wickedly  unkind." 

"Abusing,  my  dear  lady?" 

"Come,  now.  Baron,  what  you  said  to  the 
Duke " 

"Ah.  That  was  an  unfortunate  accident.  I 
did  what  under  any  other  circumstances  would 
have  been  my  duty,  and  Providence " 


"Oh,  Baron  dear,  leave  Providence  alone. 
And  leave  your  duty  alone.  A  tongue  doing  its 
duty  is  such  a  terrible  instrument  of  destruction. 
Why,  you  can  almost  see  all  the  little  Loves  and 
Charities  turning  paler  and  paler  and  weaker  and 
weaker  the  longer  it  wags,  and  shrivelling  up  quite 
at  last  and  being  snuffed  out.  Really  I  have  been 
thankful  on  my  knees  every  time  I  have  not  said 
what  I  was  going  to  say  when  Fve  been  annoyed." 

"Indeed?"  said  I,  ironically. 


278  THE  CARAVANERS 

I  might  have  added  that  no  great  strain  could 
have  been  put  upon  her  knees,  for  I  could  con- 
ceive no  woman  less  likely  to  be  silent  if  she 
wanted  to  speak.  But,  candidly,  what  did  it 
matter  ?  I  have  always  found  it  quite  impossible 
to  take  a  woman  seriously,  even  when  I  am 
attracted;  and  heaven  knows  I  had  no  desire  to 
sit  on  stones  in  that  wet  place  while  this  one 
spread  out  her  little  stock  of  ill-assimilated  wis- 
dom for  my  (presumable)  improvement. 

I  therefore  began  to  button  up  my  cloak  with 
an  unmistakable  finality,  determined  to  seek  the 
others  and  suggest  a  return  to  the  camp. 

"You  forget,"  I  said,  while  I  buttoned,  "that 
an  outburst  of  annoyance  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  the  calm  discharge  of  a  reasonable 
man's  obligations." 

"What,  you've  been  quite  calm  and  happy 
when  you've  been  doing  what  you  call  rebuke?' 
said  she,  looking  up  at  me.  "Oh,  Baron."  And 
she  shook  her  head  and  smiled. 

"Calm,  I  hope  and  beheve,  but  not  happy. 
Nor  did  I  expect  to  be.  Duty  has  nothing  to  do 
with  one's  happiness." 

"No,  nor  with  the  other  one's,"  said  she 
quickly. 

Of  course  I  could  have  scattered  her  reasoning 
to  the  winds  if  I  had  chosen  to  bring  real  logic  to 
bear  on  it,  but  it  would  have  taken  time,  she 


THE  CARAVANERS  279 

being  very  unconvinceable,  and  I  really  could  not 
be  bothered. 

"Let  Menzies-Legh  convince  her,"  thought 
I,  making  myself  ready  for  the  walk  back  in  the 
rain,  aware  that  I  had  quite  enough  to  do  con- 
vincing my  own  wife. 

"Try  praising,"  said  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh. 

Not  seeing  the  point,  I  buttoned  in  silence. 

"Praising  and  encouraging.  You'd  be  aston- 
ished at  the  results." 

In  silence,  for  I  would  not  be  at  the  trouble 
of  asking  what  it  was  I  was  to  praise  and 
encourage,  I  turned  up  my  collar  and  fastened 
the  little  strap  across  the  front.  She,  seeing  I 
had  no  further  intention  of  talking,  began  to  get 
ready  too  for  the  plunge  out  into  the  rain. 

"You're  not  angry.  Baron  dear.?"  she  asked, 
leaning  across  and  looking  into  as  much  of  my 
face  as  appeared  above  the  collar. 

This  mode  of  addressing  me  was  one  that  I 
had  never  in  any  way  encouraged,  but  no  amount 
of  stiffening  at  its  use  discouraged  it.  In  justice, 
I  must  remind  you  who  have  met  her  that  her 
voice  is  not  disagreeable.  You  will  remember  it 
is  low,  and  so  far  removed  from  shrillness  that  it 
lends  a  spurious  air  to  everything  she  says  of 
being  more  worth  listening  to  than  it  is.  Edel- 
gard  described  it  fancifully,  but  not  altogether 
badly,  as  being  full  of  shadows.     It  vibrated,  not 


28o  THE  CARAVANERS 

unmusically,  up  and  down  among  these  shadows, 
and  when  she  asked  me  if  I  were  angry  it  took 
on  a  very  fair  semblance  of  sympathetic  concern. 

I,  however,  knew  very  well  that  the  last  thing 
she  really  was  was  sympathetic  —  all  the  aptitude 
for  sympathy  the  Flitz  family  had  produced  was 
concentrated  in  her  gentle  sister  —  so  I  was  in  no 
way  hoodwinked. 

*'My  dear  lady,"  I  said,  shaking  out  the  folds 
of  my  cloak,  "I  am  not  a  child." 

"Sometimes  I  think,"  said  she,  getting  up 
too,  "that  you  are  not  enjoying  your  holiday. 
That  it's  not  what  you  thought  it  would  be. 
That  perhaps  we  are  not  a  very  —  not  a  very 
congenial  party." 

"You  are  very  good,"  said  I,  with  a  stiffness 
that  relegated  her  at  once  to  an  immense  and 
proper  distance  away,  for  was  not  this  a  tending 
toward  the  confidential?  And  a  man  has  to  be 
careful. 

She  looked  at  me  a  moment  at  this,  her  head 
a  little  on  one  side,  considering  me.  Her  want  of 
feminine  reserve  —  conceive  Edelgard  staring  at  a 
living  gentleman  with  the  frank  attention  one 
brings  to  bear  on  an  inanimate  object  —  struck  me 
afresh.  She  seemed  absolutely  without  a  vestige 
of  that  consciousness  of  sex,  of  those  arriere-pensees 
(as  our  conquered  but  still  intelligent  neighbours 
say)  very  properly  called  female  modesty.     A  well 


THE  CARAVANERS  281 

brought  up  German  lady  soon  casts  down  her 
eyes  when  facing  a  gentleman.  She  at  once 
recollects  that  she  is  a  woman  and  he  is  a  man, 
and  continues  to  recollect  it  during  the  whole 
time  they  are  together.  I  am  sure  in  the  days 
when  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  was  yet  a  Flitz  she  did 
so,  but  England  had  blunted  if  not  completely 
destroyed  those  finer  Prussian  feelings,  and  there 
she  stood  considering  me  with  what  I  can  only 
call  a  perfectly  sexless  detachment.  What,  I 
wondered,  was  she  going  to  say  that  would  annoy 
me  at  the  end  of  it?  But  she  said  nothing;  she 
just  gave  her  head  a  little  shake,  turned  suddenly, 
and  walked  away. 

Well,  I  was  not  going  to  walk  too  —  at  least, 
not  with  her.  The  ruins  were  not  my  property, 
and  she  was  not  my  guest,  so  I  felt  quite  justified 
in  letting  her  go  alone.  Chivalry,  too,  has  its 
limits,  and  one  does  not  care  to  waste  any  of  one's 
stock  of  it.  No  man  can  be  more  chivalrous  than 
I  if  provided  with  a  proper  object,  but  I  do  not 
consider  that  objects  are  proper  once  they  have 
reached  an  age  to  be  able  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves, neither  are  they  so  if  Nature  has  encrusted 
them  in  an  armour  of  unattractiveness;  in  this 
latter  case  Nature  herself  may  be  said  to  be 
chivalrous  to  them,  and  they  can  safely  be  left 
to  her  protection. 

I   therefore   followed   at   my   leisure   in   Mrs. 


282  THE  CARAVANERS 

Menzles-Legh's  wake,  desiring  to  return  to  the 
camp,  but  not  desiring  to  do  it  with  her.  I  thought 
I  would  search  for  Frau  von  Eckthum  and  she 
and  I  would  walk  back  happily  together;  and, 
passing  under  the  arch  leading  into  what  had 
been  the  banqueting  hall,  I  immediately  found 
the  object  of  my  search  beneath  an  umbrella 
which  was  being  held  over  her  head  by  Jellaby. 

When  I  was  a  child,  and  still  in  charge  of 
my  mother,  she,  doing  her  best  by  me,  used  to 
say,  "Otto,  put  yourself  in  his  place,"  if  my  judg- 
ments chanced  to  be  ill-considered  or  headlong. 

I  did  so;  it  became  a  habit;  and  in  consequence 
I  arrived  at  conclusions  I  would  probably  not 
otherwise  have  arrived  at.  So  now,  coming 
across  my  gentle  friend  beneath  Jellaby's  umbrella, 
I  mechanically  carried  out  my  mother's  injunc- 
tion. At  once  I  began  to  imagine  what  my  feelings 
would  be  in  her  place.  How,  I  rapidly  asked 
myself,  would  I  enjoy  such  close  proximity  to  the 
boring  Socialist,  to  the  common  man  of  the  people 
if  I  were  a  lady  of  exceptionally  refined  moral  and 
physical  texture,  the  fine  flower  and  latest  blos- 
som of  an  ancient,  aristocratic.  Conservative, 
and  right-thinking  family .?  Why,  it  would  be 
torture;  and  so  was  this  that  I  had  providentially 
chanced  upon  torture. 

"My  dear  friend,"  I  cried,  darting  forward, 
"what  are  you  doing  here  in  the  wet  and  dark- 


THE  CARAVANERS  283 

ness  unprotected  ?  Permit  me  to  offer  you  my  arm 
and  conduct  you  to  your  sister,  who  is,  I  believe, 
preparing  to  return  to  camp.     Allow  me " 

And  before  Jellaby  could  frame  a  sentence  I 
had  drawn  her  hand  through  my  arm  and  was 
leading  her  carefully  away. 

He,  I  regret  to  say,  quite  unable  (owing  to  his 
thick  skin)  to  see  when  his  presence  was  not 
desired,  came  too,  making  clumsy  attempts  to 
hold  his  umbrella  over  her  and  chiefly  succeeding, 
awkward  as  he  is,  in  jerking  the  rain  off  its  tips 
down  my  neck. 

Well,  I  could  not  be  rude  to  him  before  a  lady 
and  roundly  tell  him  to  take  himself  off,  but  I  do 
not  think  he  enjoyed  his  walk.  To  begin  with  I 
suddenly  remembered  that  no  members  of  our 
party,  except  Edelgard  and  myself,  possessed 
umbrellas,  so  that  I  was  able  to  say  with  the  mild- 
ness that  is  sometimes  so  telling:  "Jellaby,  what 
umbrella  is  this.^" 

"The  Baroness  kindly  lent  it  to  me,"  he  replied. 

"Oh,  indeed.  Community  of  goods,  eh  ?  And 
what  is  she  doing  herself  without  one,  may  I 
inquire?" 

"I  took  her  home.  She  said  she  had  some 
sewing  to  do.  I  think  it  was  to  mend  a  garment 
of  yours." 

"Very  likely.  Then,  since  it  is  my  wife's 
umbrella,  and  therefore  mine,  as  you  will  hardly 


284  THE  CARAVANERS 

deny,  for  if  two  persons  become  by  the  marriage 
law  one  flesh  they  must  equally  become  one  every- 
thing else,  and  therefore  also  one  umbrella,  may  I 
request  you  instead  of  inserting  it  so  persistently 
between  my  collar  and  my  neck  to  hand  it  over 
to  me,  and  allow  its  lawful  owner  to  hold  it  for 
this  lady?" 

And  I  took  it  from  him,  and  looked  down  at 
Frau  von  Eckthum  and  laughed,  for  I  knew  she 
would  be  amused  at  Jellaby's  being  treated  as  he 
ought  to  be. 

She,  of  my  own  nation  and  class,  must  often 
have  been,  I  think,  scandalized  at  the  way  the 
English  members  of  the  party  behaved  to  him, 
absolutely  as  though  he  were  one  of  themselves. 
Her  fastidiousness  must  often  and  often  have 
been  wounded  by  Jellaby's  appearance  and  man- 
ner of  speech,  by  his  flannel  collar,  his  untidy 
clothes,  the  wisp  of  hair  forever  being  brushed 
aside  from  his  forehead  only  forever  to  fall  across 
it  again,  his  slender,  almost  feminine  frame,  his 
round  face,  and  the  ridiculous  whiteness  of  his  skin. 
Really,  the  only  way  to  treat  this  person  was  as  a 
kind  of  joke;  not  to  take  him  seriously,  not  to 
allow  oneself  to  be,  as  one  so  often  was  on  the 
verge  of  being,  angry  with  him.  So  I  gave  the 
hand  resting  on  my  arm  a  slight  pressure  express- 
ive of  mutual  understanding,  and  looked  down 
at  her  and  laughed. 


THE  CARAVANERS  285 

The  dear  lady  was  not,  however,  invariably 
quick  of  comprehension.  As  a  rule,  yes;  but 
once  or  twice  she  gave  the  last  touch  to  her  femi- 
ninity by  being  divinely  stupid,  and  on  this  occa- 
sion, whether  it  was  because  her  little  feet  were 
wet  and  therefore  cold,  or  she  was  not  attending 
to  the  conversation,  or  she  had  had  such  a  dose 
of  Jellaby  that  her  brain  refused  any  new  impres- 
sion, she  responded  neither  to  my  look  nor  to  my 
laugh.  Her  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  ground,  and 
the  delicate  and  serious  outline  of  her  nose  was  all 
that  I  was  permitted  to  see. 

Respecting  her  mood,  as  a  tactful  man  natur- 
ally would,  I  did  not  again  directly  appeal  to  her, 
but  laid  myself  out  to  amuse  her  on  the  way  up 
the  hill  by  talking  to  Jellaby  in  a  strain  of  mock 
solemnity  and  endeavouring  to  draw  him  out  for 
her  entertainment.  Unfortunately  he  resisted  my 
well-meant  efforts,  and  was  more  taciturn  than  I 
had  yet  seen  him.  He  hardly  spoke,  and  she,  I 
fear,  was  very  tired,  for  only  once  did  she  say  Oh. 
So  that  the  conversation  ended  by  being  a  dis- 
quisition on  Socialism  held  solely  by  myself, 
listened  to  by  Frau  von  Eckthum  with  absorbed 
and  silent  interest,  and  by  Jellaby  with,  I  am  sure, 
the  greatest  rage.  Anyhow,  I  made  some  very 
good  points,  and  he  did  not  venture  a  single  pro- 
test. Probably  his  fallacious  theories  had  never 
had  such  a  thorough  pulling  to  pieces  before,  for 


286  .      THE  CARAVANERS 

there  were  two  miles  to  go  up  hill  and  I  made  the 
pace  as  slow  as  possible.  My  hearers  must  also 
bear  in  mind  that  I  exclusively  employed  that 
most  deadly  weapon  for  withering  purposes,  the 
double-barrelled  syringe  of  irony  and  wit.  Noth- 
ing can  stand  against  the  poison  pumped  out  of 
these  two,  and  I  could  afford  to  bid  Jellaby  the 
cheeriest  good  night  as  I  helped  the  tender  lady 
up  the  steps  of  her  caravan. 

He,  it  is  amusing  to  relate,  barely  answered. 
But  the  moment  he  had  gone  Frau  von  Eckthum 
found  her  tongue  again,  for  on  my  telling  her  as 
she  was  about  to  disappear  through  her  doorway 
how  greatly  I  had  enjoyed  being  able  to  be  of 
some  slight  service  to  her,  she  paused  with  her 
hand  on  the  curtain  and  looking  down  at  me,  said : 
''What  service?" 

"Rescuing  you  from  Jellaby,"  said  I. 

"Oh,"  said  she;  and  drew  back  the  curtain 
and  went  in. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THERE  is  a  place  about  six  hours*  march  from 
Bodiam  called  Frogs'  Hole  Farm,  a  deserted 
house  lying  low  among  hop-fields,  a  dank  spot  in  a 
hollow  with  the  ground  rising  abruptly  round  it 
on  every  side,  a  place  of  perpetual  shade  and 
astonishing  solitude. 

To  this,  led  by  the  wayward  Fate  that  had 
guided  our  vague  movements  from  the  begin- 
ning, we  steadily  journeyed  during  the  whole  of 
the  next  day.  We  were  not,  of  course,  aware 
of  it  —  one  never  is,  as  no  doubt  my  hearers 
have  noticed  too  —  but  that  that  was  the  ultimate 
object  of  every  one  of  our  painful  steps  during  an 
exceptionally  long  march,  and  that  our  little  argu- 
ments at  crossroads  and  hesitations  as  to  which 
we  would  take  were  only  the  triflings  of  Fate, 
contemptuously  willing  to  let  us  think  we  were 
choosing,  dawned  upon  us  at  four  o'clock  exactly, 
when  we  lumbered  in  single  file  along  a  cart  track 
at  the  edge  of  a  hop-field  and  emerged  one  by  one 
into  the  back  yard  of  Frogs'  Hole  Farm. 

The  house  stood  (and  very  likely  still  does) 
on  the  other  side  of  a  dilapidated    fence,  in   a 

287 


288  THE  CARAVANERS 

square  of  rank  garden.  A  line  of  shabby  firs 
with  many  branches  missing  ran  along  the  north 
side  of  it;  a  pond,  green  with  slime,  occupied  the 
middle  of  what  was  once  its  lawn;  and  the  last 
tenant  had  left  in  such  an  apparent  hurry  that 
he  had  not  cleared  up  his  packing  materials,  and 
the  path  to  the  front  door  was  still  littered  with 
the  straw  and  newspapers  of  his  departure. 

The  house  was  square  with  many  windows, 
so  that  in  whatever  corner  we  camped  we  were 
subject  to  the  glassy  and  empty  stare  of  two  rows 
of  them.  Though  it  was  only  four  o'clock  when 
we  arrived  the  sun  was  already  hidden  behind  the 
big  trees  that  crowned  the  hill  to  the  west,  and  the 
place  seemed  to  have  settled  down  for  the  night. 
Ghostly?  Very  ghostly,  my  friends;  but  then 
even  a  villa  of  the  reddest  and  newest  type  if  it 
is  not  lived  in  is  ghostly  in  the  shiver  of  twilight; 
at  least,  that  is  what  I  heard  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh 
say  to  Edelgard,  who  was  standing  near  the 
broken  fence  surveying  the  forlorn  residence  with 
obvious  misgiving. 

We  had  asked  no  one's  permission  to  camp 
there,  not  deeming  it  necessary  when  we  heard 
from  a  labourer  on  the  turnpike  road  that  down 
an  obscure  lane  and  through  a  hop-field  we  would 
find  all  we  required.  Space  there  was  certainly 
of  every  kind:  empty  sheds,  empty  barns,  empty 
oast-houses,  and,  if  we  had  chosen  to  open  one  of 


THE  CARAVANERS  289 

the  rickety  windows,  an  empty  house.  Space 
there  was  in  plenty;  but  an  inhabited  farm  with 
milk  and  butter  in  it  would  have  been  more  con- 
venient. Besides,  there  did  undoubtedly  lie  — 
as  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  said  —  a  sort  of  shiver  over 
the  place,  an  ominously  complete  silence  and 
motionlessness  of  leaf  and  bough,  and  nowhere 
round  could  I  see  either  a  roof  or  a  chimney,  no, 
not  so  much  as  a  thread  of  smoke  issuing  upward 
from  between  the  hills  to  show  me  that  we  were  not 
alone. 

Well,  I  am  not  one  to  mind  much  if  leaves 
do  not  move  and  a  place  is  silent.  A  man  does  not 
regard  these  matters  in  the  way  ladies  do,  but  I 
must  say  even  I  —  and  my  friends  will  be  able  to 
measure  from  that  the  uncanniness  of  our  sur- 
roundings —  even  I  remembered  with  a  certain 
regret  that  Lord  Sigismund's  very  savage  and 
very  watchful  dog  had  gone  with  his  master  and 
was  therefore  no  longer  with  us.  Nor  had  we 
even  Jellaby's,  which,  inferior  as  it  was,  was  yet  a 
dog,  no  doubt  with  some  amount  of  practice  in 
barking,  for  it  was  still  at  the  veterinary  surgeon's, 
a  gentleman  by  now  left  far  behind  folded  among 
the  embosoming  hills. 

My  hearers  must  be  indulgent  if  my  style 
from  time  to  time  is  tinged  with  poetic  expressions 
such  as  this  about  the  veterinary  surgeon  and  the 
hills,  for  they  must  not  forget  that  the  party  I  was 


290  THE  CARAVANERS 

with  could  hardly  open  any  of  its  mouths  without 
using  words  plain  men  like  myself  do  not  as  a  rule 
even  recollect.  It  exuded  poetry.  Poetry  rolled 
off  it  as  naturally  and  as  continuously  as  water 
off  a  duck's  back.  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  was  an 
especial  offender  in  this  respect,  but  I  have  heard 
her  gloomy  husband,  and  Jellaby  too,  run  her  very 
close.  After  a  week  of  it  I  found  myself  rather 
inclined  also  to  talk  of  things  like  embosoming 
hills,  and  writing  now  about  the  caravan  tour  I 
cannot  always  avoid  falling  into  a  strain  so  inti- 
mately, in  my  memory,  associated  with  it.  They 
were  a  strange  set  of  human  beings  gathered 
together  beneath  those  temporary  and  inadequate 
roofs.     I  hope  my  hearers  see  them. 

Our  march  that  day  had  been  more  silent  than 
usual,  for  the  party  was  greatly  subject,  as  I  was 
gradually  discovering,  to  ups  and  downs  in  its 
spirits,  and  I  suppose  the  dreary  influence  of 
Bodiam  together  with  the  defection  of  Lord 
Sigismund  lay  heavily  upon  them,  for  that  day 
was  undoubtedly  a  day  of  downs.  The  weather 
was  autumnal.  It  did  not  rain,  but  sky  and 
earth  were  equally  leaden,  and  I  only  saw  very 
occasional  gleams  of  sunshine  reflected  in  the 
puddles  on  which  my  eyes  were  necessarily  fixed 
if  I  would  successfully  avoid  them.  At  a  place 
called  Brede,  a  bleak  hamlet  exposed  on  the  top 
of  a  hill,  we  were  to  have  met  Lord  Sigismund 


THE  CARAVANERS  291 

but  instead  there  was  only  an  emissary  from  him 
with  a  letter  for  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  which  she 
read  in  silence,  handed  to  her  husband  in  silence, 
waited  while  he  read  it  in  silence,  and  then  without 
any  comment  gave  the  signal  to  resume  the  march. 
How  differently  Germans  would  have  behaved  I 
need  not  tell  you,  for  news  is  a  thing  no  German 
will  omit  to  share  with  his  neighbours,  discussing 
it  thoroughly,  lang  und  breit,  from  every  possible 
and  impossible  point  of  view,  which  is,  I  main- 
tain, the  human  way,  and  the  other  way  is 
inhuman. 

"Is  not  Lord  Sigismund  coming  to-day?"  I 
asked  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  the  first  moment  she 
came  within  earshot. 

"Tm  afraid  not,"  said  she. 

"To-morrow?" 

"Fm  afraid  not." 

"What,  not  again  at  all?"  I  exclaimed,  for 
this  was  indeed  bad  news. 

"Fm  afraid  not." 

And,  contrary  to  her  practice  she  dropped 
behind. 

"Why  is  not  Lord  Sigismund  coming  back?" 
I  shouted  to  Menzies-Legh,  whose  caravan  was 
following  mine,  mine  as  usual  being  in  the  middle ; 
and  I  walked  on  backward  through  all  the  puddles 
so  as  to  face  him,  being  unable  to  leave  my  horse. 

"Eh?"  said  he. 


292  THE  CARAVANERS 

How  like  an  ill-conditioned  carter  he  looked, 
trudging  gloomily  along,  his  coat  off,  his  bat- 
tered hat  pushed  back  from  his  sullen  forehead! 
Another  week,  I  thought,  and  he  would  be  per- 
fectly indistinguishable  from  the  worst  example 
of  a  real  one. 

"Why  is  not  Lord  Sigismund  coming  back?" 
I  repeated,  my  hands  up  to  my  mouth  in  order  to 
carry  my  question  right  up  to  his  heavy  ears. 

"He's  prevented." 

"Prevented?" 

"Eh?" 

"  Prevented  by  what  ? " 

"Eh?" 

This  was  wilfulness:   it  must  have  been. 

"What  —  has  —  prevented  —  him  ?"  I  roared. 

"Look  out  —  your  van  will  be  in  the  ditch." 

And  turning  quickly  I  was  just  in  time  to  pull 
the  tiresome  brute  of  a  horse,  who  never  could  be 
left  to  himself  an  instant,  straight  again. 

I  walked  on  shrugging  my  shoulders.  Menzies- 
Legh  was  without  any  doubt  as  ill-conditioned  a 
specimen  of  manhood  as  I  have  ever  come  across. 

At  the  four  crossroads  beyond  Brede,  on  the 
party's  pausing  as  usual  to  argue  over  the  sign- 
post while  Fate,  with  Frogs'  Hole  Farm  up  her 
sleeve,  laughed  in  the  background,  I  laid  my  hand 
on  Jellaby's  arm  —  its  thinness  quite  made  me 
jump  —  and  said,  "Where  is  Lord  Sigismund?" 


THE  CARAVANERS  293 

"Gone  home,  I  believe,  with  his  father." 

"  Why  is  he  not  coming  back  ? " 

"He's  prevented." 

"But  by  what?     Is  he  ill.?" 

"Oh,  no.  He's  just  —  just  prevented,  you 
know." 

And  Jellaby  slipped  his  arm  out  of  my  grasp 
and  went  to  stare  with  the  others  up  at  the  sign- 
post. 

On  the  road  we  finally  decided  to  take,  while 
they  were  all  clustering  round  the  labourer  I  have 
mentioned  who  directed  us  to  the  deserted  farm, 
I  approached  Frau  von  Eckthum  who  stood  on 
the  outer  fringe  of  the  cluster,  and  said  in  the 
gentler  voice  I  instinctively  used  when  speaking  to 
her,  "I  hear  Lord  Sigismund  is  not  coming  back." 

Gently  as  my  voice  was,  it  yet  made  her  start; 
she  generally  did  start  when  spoken  to,  being 
unusually  (it  adds  to  her  attractiveness)  highly 
strung. 

("She  doesn't  when  I  speak  to  her,"  said  Edel- 
gard,  on  my  commenting  to  her  on  this  charac- 
teristic. 

"My  dear,  you  are  merely  another  woman," 
I  replied  —  somewhat  sharply,  for  Edelgard  is 
really  often  unendurably  obtuse.) 

"I  hear  Lord  Sigismund  is  not  coming  back," 
I  said,  then,  very  gently,  to  the  tender  lady. 

"Oh.?"  said  she. 


294  THE  CARAVANERS 

For  the  first  time  I  could  have  wished  a  wider 
range  of  speech. 

"He  has  been  prevented,  I  hear." 

"Oh?" 

"Do  you  know  what  has  prevented  him?"        ^ 

She  looked  at  me  and  then  at  the  others 
absorbed  by  the  labourer  with  a  funny  little  look 
(altogether  feminine)  of  helplessness,  though  it 
could  not  of  course  have  been  that;  then,  add- 
ing another  letter  but  not  unfortunately  another 
word  to  her  vocabulary,  she  said  "No"  —  or 
rather  "N-n-n-o,"  for  she  hesitated. 

And  up  bustled  Jellaby  as  I  was  about  to 
press  my  inquiries,  and  taking  me  by  the  elbow 
(the  familiarity  of  this  sort  of  person!)  led  me 
aside  to  overwhelm  me  with  voluble  directions  as 
to  the  turnings  to  Frogs'  Hole  Farm. 

Well,  it  was  undoubtedly  a  blow  to  find  by 
far  the  most  interesting  and  amiable  member  of 
the  party  (with  the  exception  of  Frau  von  Eck- 
thum)  gone,  and  gone  without  a  word,  with- 
out an  explanation,  a  farewell,  or  a  regret.  It  was 
Lord  Sigismund's  presence,  the  presence  of  one 
so  unquestionably  of  my  own  social  standing,  of 
one  whose  relations  could  all  bear  any  amount  of 
scrutiny  and  were  not  like  Edelgard's  Aunt 
Bockhiigel  (of  whom  perhaps  more  presently)  a 
dark  and  doubtful  spot  round  which  conversation 
had  to  make  careful  detours  —  it  was  undoubtedly. 


Gentle  as  my  voice  was,  it  yet  made  her  start 


THE  CARAVANERS  295 

I  say.  Lord  Sigismund  who  had  given  the  expedi- 
tion its  decent  air  of  being  just  an  aristocratic 
whim,  stamped  it,  marked  it,  raised  it  altogether 
above  mere  appearances.  He  was  a  Christian 
gentleman;  more,  he  was  the  only  one  of  the 
party  who  could  cook.  Were  we,  then,  to  be 
thrown  for  future  sustenance  entirely  on  Jellaby's 
porridge  ? 

That  afternoon,  dining  in  the  mud  of  the 
deserted  farmyard,  we  had  sausages;  a  dinner 
that  had  only  been  served  once  before,  and  which 
was  a  sign  in  itself  that  the  kitchen  resources 
were  strained.  I  have  already  described  how 
Jellaby  cooked  sausages,  goading  them  round  and 
round  the  pan,  prodding  them,  pursuing  them, 
giving  them  no  rest  in  which  to  turn  brown 
quietly  —  as  foolish  a  way  with  a  sausage  as 
ever  I  have  seen.  For  the  second  time  during 
the  tour  we  ate  them  pink,  filling  up  as  best  we 
might  with  potatoes,  a  practice  we  had  got  quite 
used  to,  though  to  you,  my  hearers,  who  only 
know  potatoes  as  an  adjunct,  it  will  seem  a  piti- 
able state  of  things.  So  it  was;  but  when  one 
is  hungry  to  the  point  of  starvation  a  hot  potato 
is  an  attractive  object,  and  two  hot  potatoes  are 
exactly  doubly  so.  Anyhow  my  respect  for  them 
has  increased  tenfold  since  my  holiday,  and  I  insist 
now  on  their  being  eaten  in  much  larger  quantities 
than  they  used  to  be  in  our  kitchen,  for  do  I  not 


296  THE  CARAVANERS 

know  how  thoroughly  they  fill?  And  servants 
quarrel  if  they  have  too  much  meat. 

"That  is  poor  food  for  a  man  like  you,  Baron,'* 
said  Menzies-Legh,  suddenly  addressing  me  from 
the  other  end  of  the  table. 

He  had  been  watching  me  industriously  scrap- 
ing —  picture,  my  friends.  Baron  von  Ottringel 
thus  reduced  —  scraping,  I  say,  the  last  remnants 
of  the  potatoes  out  of  the  saucepan  after  the  ladies 
had  gone,  accompanied  by  Jellaby,  to  begin  wash- 
ing up. 

It  was  so  long  since  he  had  spoken  to  me  of 
his  own  accord  that  I  paused  in  my  scraping  to 
stare  at  him.  Then,  with  my  natural  readiness  at 
that  sort  of  thing,  I  drew  his  attention  to  his 
bad  manners  earlier  in  the  afternoon  by  baldly 
answering  "Eh?" 

"I  wonder  you  stand  it,"  he  said,  taking  no 
notice  of  the  little  lesson. 

"Pray  will  you  tell  me  how  it  is  to  be  helped  ?" 
I  inquired.  "Roast  goose  does  not,  I  have 
observed,  grow  on  the  hedges  in  your  country." 
(This,  I  felt,  was  an  excellent  retort.) 

"But  it  flourishes  in  London  and  other  big 
towns,"  said  he  —  a  foolish  thing  to  say  to  a  man 
sitting  in  the  back  yard  of  Frogs'  Hole  Farm. 
"Have  a  cigarette,"  he  added;  and  he  pushed 
his  case  toward  me. 

I  lit  one,  slightly  surprised  at  the  change  for 


THE  CARAVANERS  297 

the  better  in  his  behaviour,  and  he  got  up  and 
came  and  sat  on  the  vacant  camp-stool  beside  me. 

"Hunger,"  said  I,  continuing  the  conversa- 
tion, "is  the  best  sauce,  and  as  I  am  constantly 
hungry  it  follows  that  I  cannot  complain  of  not 
having  enough  sauce.  In  fact,  I  am  beginning  to 
feel  that  gipsying  is  a  very  health-giving  pursuit." 

"Damp  —  damp,"  said  Menzies-Legh,  shaking 
his  head  and  screwing  up  his  mouth  in  a  dis- 
approval that  astonished  me. 

"What?"  I  said.  "It  may  be  a  little  damp 
if  the  weather  is  damp,  but  one  must  get  used  to 
hardships." 

**Only  to  find,"  said  he,  "that  one's  constitu- 
tion has  been  undermined." 

"What?"  said  I,  unable  to  understand  this 
change  of  attitude. 

"Undermined  for  life,"  said  he,  impressively. 

"My  dear  sir,  I  have  heard  you  myself,  under 
the  most  adverse  circumstances,  repeatedly  remark 
that  it  was  healthy  and  jolly." 

"My  dear  Baron,"  said  he,  "I  am  not  like 
you.  Neither  Jellaby,  nor  I,  nor  Browne  either, 
for  that  matter,  has  your  physique.  We  are 
physically,  compared  to  you  —  to  be  quite  frank  — 
mere  weeds." 

"Oh,  come  now,  my  dear  sir,  I  cannot  permit 
you  —  you  undervalue  —  of  slighter  build,  per- 
haps,   but    hardly " 


298  THE  CARAVANERS 

"It  is  true.  Weeds.  Mere  weeds.  And 
my  point  is  that  we,  accordingly,  are  not  nearly 
so  likely  as  you  are  to  suffer  in  the  long  run  from 
the  privations  and  exposure  of  a  bad-weather 
holiday  like  this." 

"Well  now,  you  must  pardon  me  if  I  entirely 
fail  to  see " 

"Why,  my  dear  Baron,  it's  as  plain  as  day- 
light. Our  constitutions  will  not  be  undermined 
for  the  shatteringly  good  reason  that  we  have 
none  to  undermine." 

My  hearers  will  agree  that,  logically,  the 
position  was  incontrovertible,  and  yet  I  doubted. 

Observing  my  silence,  and  probably  guessing 
its  cause,  he  took  up  an  empty  glass  and  poured 
some  tea  into  it  from  the  teapot  at  which 
Frau  von  Eckthum  had  been  slaking  her  thirst 
in  spite  of  my  warnings  (I  had,  alas,  no  right 
to  forbid)  that  so  much  tea  drinking  would 
make  her  still  more  liable  to  start  when  suddenly 
addressed. 

"Look  here,"  said  he. 

I  looked. 

"You  can  see  this  tea." 

"Certainly." 

"Clear,  isn't  it?  A  beautiful  clear  brown. 
A  tribute  to  the  spring  water  here.  You  can  see 
the  house  and  all  its  windows  through  it,  it  is 
so  perfectly  transparent." 


THE  CARAVANERS  299 

And  he  held  it  up,  and  shutting  one  eye  stared 
through  it  with  the  other. 

"Well?"  I  inquired. 

"Well,  now  look  at  this." 

And  he  took  another  glass  and  set  it  beside 
the  first  one,  and  poured  both  tea  and  milk  into  it. 

"Look  there,"  he  said. 

I  looked. 

"Jellaby,"saidhe. 

I   stared. 

Then  he  took  another  glass,  and  poured  both 
tea  and  milk  into  it,  setting  it  in  a  line  with  the 
first  two. 

"Browne,"  said  he. 

I   stared. 

Then  he  took  a  fourth  glass,  and  filled  it  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  second  and  third  and 
placed  it  at  the  end  of  the  line. 

"Myself,"  said  he. 

I  stared. 

"Can  you  see  through  either  of  those  three?" 
he  asked,  tapping  them  one  after  the  other. 

"No,"  said  I. 

"Now  if  I  put  a  little  more  milk  into  them"  — 
he  did  —  "it  makes  no  difference.  They  were 
muddy  and  thick  before,  and  they  remain  muddy 
and  thick.  But'*  —  and  he  held  the  milk  jug 
impressively  over  the  first  glass  —  "  if  I  put  the  least 
drop  into  this  one"  —  he  did  —  "see  how  visible  it 


300  THE  CARAVANERS 

is.    The  admirable  clearness  is  instantaneously     \ 
dimmed.     The  pollution  spreads  at  once.     The 
entire  glass,  owing  to  that  single  drop,  is  altered, 
muddied,  ruined.'* 

**Well?"  I  inquired,  as  he  paused  and  stared 
hard  at  me. 

"  Well  ? "  said  he.    " Do  you  not  see  ?" 

"See  what?"  said  I. 

"My  point.  It's  as  clear  as  the  first  glass  was 
before  I  put  milk  into  it.  The  first  glass,  my 
dear  Baron,  is  you,  with  your  sound  and  perfect 
constitution." 

I  bowed. 

"Your  splendid  health." 

I  bowed. 

"Your  magnificent  physique." 

I  bowed. 

"The  other  three  are  myself,  and  Jellaby,  and 
Browne." 

He   paused. 

"And  the  drop  of  milk,"  he  said  slowly,  "is 
the  caravan  tour." 

I  was  confounded;  and  you,  my  hearers,  will 
admit  that  I  had  every  reason  to  be.  Here  was 
an  example  of  what  is  rightly  called  irresistible 
logic,  and  a  reasonable  man  dare  not  refuse,  once 
he  recognizes  it,  to  bow  in  silence.  Yet  I  felt 
very  well.  I  said  I  did,  after  a  pause  during 
which  I  was  realizing  how  unassailable  Menzies- 


THE  CARAVANERS  301 

Legh's  position  was,  and  endeavouring  to  rec- 
oncile its  unassailableness  with  my  own  healthful 
sensations. 

"You  can't  get  away  from  facts,"  he  answered. 
"There  they  are." 

And  he  indicated  with  his  cigarette  the  four 
glasses  and  the  milk  jug. 

"But,"  I  repeated,  "except  for  a  natural  foot- 
soreness  I  undoubtedly  do  feel  very  well." 

"My  dear  Baron,  it  is  obvious  beyond  all 
argument  that  the  more  absolutely  well  a  person 
is  the  more  easily  he  must  be  affected  by  the 
smallest  upset,  by  the  smallest  variation  in  the 
environment  to  which  he  has  got  accustomed. 
Paradox,  which  plays  so  large  a  part  in  all  truths, 
is  rampant  here.  Those  in  perfect  health  are 
nearer  than  anybody  else  to  being  seriously  ill. 
To  keep  well  you  must  never  be  quite  so." 

He  paused. 

"When,"  he  continued,  seeing  that  I  said 
nothing,  "we  began  caravaning  we  could  not 
know  how  persistently  cold  and  wet  it  was  going 
to  be,  but  now  that  we  do  I  must  say  I  feel  the 
responsibility  of  having  persuaded  you  —  or  of  my 
sister-in-law's  having  persuaded  you  —  to  join  us." 

"  But  I  feel  very  well,"  I  repeated. 

"And  so  you  will,  up  to  the  moment  when 
you  do  not." 

Of  course  that  was  true. 


302  THE  CARAVANERS 

"Rheumatism,  now,"  he  said,  shaking  his  head; 
**I  greatly  fear  rheumatism  for  you  in  the  coming 
winter.  And  rheumatism  once  it  gets  hold  of  a 
man  doesn't  leave  him  till  it  has  ravaged  each 
separate  organ,  including,  as  everybody  knows, 
that  principal  organ  of  all,  the  heart." 

This  was  gloomy  talk,  and  yet  the  man  was 
right.  The  idea  that  a  holiday,  a  thing  planned 
and  looked  forward  to  with  so  much  pleasure, 
was  to  end  by  ravaging  my  organs  did  not  lighten 
the  leaden  atmosphere  that  surrounded  and 
weighed  upon  Frogs'  Hole  Farm. 

"I  cannot  alter  the  weather,"  I  said  at  last  — 
irritably,  for  I  felt  ruffled. 

*'No.  But  I  wouldn't  risk  it  for  too  long  if 
I  were  you,"  said  he. 

"Why,  I  have  paid  for  a  month,"  I  exclaimed, 
surprised  that  he  should  overlook  this  clinching 
fact. 

"That,  set  against  an  impaired  constitution, 
is  a  very  inconsiderable  trifle,"  said  he. 

"Not  inconsiderable   at  all,"   said   I   sharply. 

"Money  is  money,  and  I  am  not  one  to  throw  it 
away.  And  what  about  the  van .?  You  cannot 
abandon  an  entire  van  at  a  great  distance  from 
the  place  it  belongs  to." 

"Oh,"  said  he  quickly,  "we  would  see  to  that." 

I  got  up,  for  the  sight  of  the  glasses  full  of 
what  I  was  forced  to  acknowledge  was  symbolic 


THE  CARAVANERS  303 

truth  irritated  me.  The  one  representing  myself, 
into  which  he  had  put  but  one  drop  of  milk, 
was  miserably  discoloured.  I  did  not  like  to 
think  of  such  discolouration  being  my  probable 
portion,  and  yet  having  paid  for  a  month's  cara- 
vaning  what  could  I  do  ?  '* 

The  afternoon  was  chilly  and  very  damp,  and 
I  buttoned  my  wraps  carefully  about  my  throat. 
Menzies-Legh  watched  me. 

"Well,"  said  he,  getting  up  and  looking  first 
at  me  and  then  at  the  glasses  and  then  at  me 
again,  "what  do  you  think  of  doing,  Baron?" 

"Going  for  a  Httle  stroll,"  I  said. 

And  I  went. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THIS  was  a  singular  conversation. 
I  passed  round  the  back  of  the  house  and 
along  a  footpath  I  found  there,  turning  it  over  in  my 
mind.  Less  than  ever  did  I  like  Menzies-Legh. 
In  spite  of  the  compliments  about  my  physique  I 
liked  him  less  than  ever.  And  how  very  annoying 
it  is  when  a  person  you  do  not  like  is  right;  bad 
enough  if  you  do  like  him,  but  intolerable  if  you 
do  not.  As  I  proceeded  along  the  footpath  with 
my  eyes  on  the  ground  I  saw  at  every  step  those 
four  glasses  of  tea,  particularly  my  one,  the  one 
that  sparkled  so  brilliantly  'at  first  and  was 
afterward  so  easily  ruined.  Absorbed  in  this 
contemplation  I  did  not  notice  whither  my 
steps  were  tending  till  I  was  pulled  up  sud- 
denly by  a  church  door.  The  path  had  led  me 
to  that,  and  then,  as  I  saw,  skirted  along  a 
fringe  of  tombstones  to  a  gate  in  a  wall  beyond 
which  appeared  the  chimneys  of  what  was  no 
doubt  the  parsonage. 

The  church  door  was  open,  and  I  went  in  — 
for  I  was  tired,  and  here  were  pews;  ruffled,  and 
here  was  peace.    The  droning  of  a  voice  led  me 

304 


THE  CARAVANERS  305 

to  conclude  (rightly)  that  a  service  was  in  progress, 
for  I  had  learned  by  this  time  that  in  England  the 
churches  constantly  burst  out  into  services,  regard- 
less of  the  sort  of  day  it  is  —  whether,  I  mean,  it  is 
a  Sunday  or  not.  I  entered,  and  selecting  a  pew 
with  a  red  cushion  along  its  seat  and  a  comfortable 
footstool  sat  down. 

The  pastor  was  reading  the  Scriptures  out 
of  a  Bible  supported,  according  to  the  unaccount- 
able British  custom,  on  the  back  of  a  Prussian 
eagle.  This  prophetic  bird  —  the  first  swallow, 
as  it  were,  of  that  summer  which  I  trust  will 
not  long  be  delayed,  when  Luther's  translation 
will  rest  on  its  back  and  be  read  aloud  by  a  Ger- 
man pastor  to  a  congregation  forced  to  understand 
by  the  simple  methods  we  bring  to  bear  on  our 
Polish  (also  acquired)  subjects  —  eyed  me  with  a 
human  intelligence.  We  eyed  each  other,  in  fact, 
as  old  friends  might  who  meet  after  troublous 
experiences  in  an  alien  land. 

Except  for  this  bird,  who  seemed  to  me  quite 
human  in  his  expression  of  alert  sympathy,  the 
pastor  and  I  were  alone  in  the  building;  and  I  sat 
there  marvelling  at  the  wasteful  folly  that  pays  a 
man  to  read  and  pray  daily  to  a  set  of  empty  pews. 
Ought  he  not  rather  to  stay  at  home  and  keep  an 
eye  on  his  wife  ?  To  do,  indeed,  anything  sooner 
than  conduct  a  service  which  nobody  evidently 
wants?     I  call  it  heathenism;    I  call  it  idolatry; 


3o6  THE  CARAVANERS 

and  so  would  any  other  plain  man  who  heard  and 
saw  empty  pews,  things  of  wood  and  cushions, 
being  addressed  as  brethren,  and  dearly  beloved 
ones  into  the  bargain. 

When  he  had  done  at  the  eagle  he  crossed  over 
to  another  place  and  began  reciting  something  else; 
but  very  soon,  after  only  a  few  words,  he  stopped 
dead  and  looked  at  me. 

I  wondered  why,  for  I  had  not  done  anything. 
Even,  however,  with  that  innocence  of  conscience 
in  the  background,  it  does  make  a  man  uncomfort- 
able when  a  pastor  will  not  go  on  but  fixes  his 
eyes  on  you  sitting  harmless  in  your  pew,  and 
I  found  myself  unable  to  return  his  gaze.  The 
eagle  was  staring  at  me  with  a  startling  expres- 
sion of  comprehension,  almost  as  if  he  too  were 
thinking  that  a  pastor  officiating  has  such  an 
undoubted  advantage  over  the  persons  in  the  pews 
that  it  is  cowardice  to  use  it.  My  discomfort 
increased  considerably  when  I  saw  the  pastor 
descend  from  his  place  and  bear  down  on  me, 
his  eyes  still  fixing  me,  his  white  clothing  flutter- 
ing out  behind  him.  What,  I  asked  myself  greatly 
perturbed,  could  the  creature  possibly  want?  I 
soon  found  out,  for  thrusting  an  open  Prayer-book 
toward  me  he  pointed  to  a  verse  of  what  appeared 
to  be  a  poem,  and  whispered: 

"Will  you  kindly  stand  up  and  take  your  part 
in  the  service?" 


THE  CARAVANERS  307 

Even  had  I  known  how,  surely  I  had  no  part 
nor  lot  in  such  a  form  of  worship. 

"Sir,"  I  said,  not  heeding  the  outstretched 
book,  but  feeling  about  in  my  breast-pocket, 
"permit  me  to  present  you  with  my  card.  You 
will  then  see -" 

He,  however,  in  his  turn  refused  to  heed  the 
outstretched  card.  He  did  not  so  much  as  look 
at  it. 

"I  cannot  oblige  you  to,"  he  whispered,  as 
though  our  conversation  were  unfit  for  the  eagle's 
ears;  and  leaving  the  open  book  on  the  little  shelf 
in  the  front  of  the  pew  he  strode  back  again  to 
his  place  and  resumed  his  reading,  doing  what  he 
called  my  part  as  well  as  his  own  with  a  severity 
of  voice  and  manner  ill-suited  to  one  presumably 
addressing  the  liebe  Gott. 

Well,  being  there  and  very  comfortable  I  did 
not  see  why  I  should  go.  I  was  behaving  quite 
inoffensively,  sitting  still  and  holding  my  tongue, 
and  the  comfort  of  being  in  a  building  with  no 
fresh  air  in  it  was  greater  than  you,  my  friends, 
who  only  know  fresh  air  at  intervals  and  in  prop- 
erly limited  quantities,  will  be  able  to  under- 
stand. So  I  stayed  till  the  end,  till  he,  after  a 
profusion  of  prayers,  got  up  from  his  knees  and 
walked  away  into  some  obscure  portion  of  the 
church  where  I  could  no  longer  observe  his  move- 
ments,  and  then,  not  desiring  to  meet  him,   I 


3o8  THE  CARAVANERS 

sought  the  path  that  had  led  me  thither  and 
hurriedly  descended  the  hill  to  our  melancholy 
camp.  Once  I  thought  I  heard  footsteps  behind 
me  and  I  hastened  mine,  getting  as  quickly  round 
a  bend  that  would  conceal  me  from  any  one  follow- 
ing me  as  a  tired  man  could  manage,  and  it  was 
not  till  I  had  reached  and  climbed  into  the  Elsa 
that  I  felt  really  safe. 

The  three  caravans  were  as  usual  drawn  up  in 
a  parallel  line  with  mine  in  the  middle,  and  their 
door  ends  facing  the  farm.  To  be  in  the  middle 
is  a  most  awkward  situation,  for  you  cannot  speak 
the  least  word  of  caution  (or  forgiveness,  as  the 
case  may  be)  to  your  wife  without  running  grave 
risk  of  being  overheard.  Often  I  used  carefully 
to  shut  all  the  windows  and  draw  the  door  curtain, 
hoping  thus  to  obtain  a  greater  freedom  of  speech, 
though  this  was  of  little  use  with  the  Ilsa  and  the 
Ailsa  on  either  side,  their  windows  open,  and  per- 
haps a  group  of  caravaners  sitting  on  the  ground 
immediately  beneath. 

My  wife  was  mending,  and  did  not  look  up 
when  I  came  in.  How  differently  she  behaved 
at  home.  She  not  only  used  to  look  up  when 
I  came  in,  she  got  up,  and  got  up  quickly 
too,  hastening  at  the  first  sound  of  my  return 
to  meet  me  in  the  passage,  and  greeting  me 
with  the  smiles  of  a  dutiful  and  accordingly  con- 
tented wife. 


THE  CARAVANERS  309 

Shutting  the  Elsa's  windows  I  drew  her  atten- 
tion to  this. 

"But  there  isn't  a  passage,"  said  she,  still  with 
her  head  bent  over  a  sock. 

Really  Edelgard  should  take  care  to  be  spec- 
ially feminine,  for  she  certainly  will  never  shine  on 
the  strength  of  her  brains. 

"Dear  wife,"  I  began  —  and  then  the  complete 
futility  of  trying  to  thresh  any  single  subject  out  in 
that  airy,  sound-carrying  dwelling  stopped  me.  I 
sat  down  on  the  yellow  box  instead,  and  remarked 
that  I  was  extremely  fatigued. 

"So  am  I,"  said  she. 

"My  feet  ache  so,"  I  said,  "that  I  fear  there 
may  be  something  serious  the  matter  with  them." 

"So  do  mine,"  said  she. 

This,  I  may  observe,  was  a  new  and  irritating 
habit  she  had  got  into:  whatever  I  complained  of 
in  the  way  of  unaccountable  symptoms  in  divers 
portions  of  my  frame,  instead  of  sympathizing  and 
suggesting  remedies  she  said  hers  (whatever  it 
was)  did  it  too. 

"Your  feet  cannot  possibly,"  said  I,  "be  in  the 
terrible  condition  mine  are  in.  In  the  first  place 
mine  are  bigger,  and  accordingly  afford  more  scope 
for  disorders.  I  have  shooting  pains  in  them 
resembling  neuralgia,  and  no  doubt  traceable  to 
some  nervous  source." 

"So  have  I,"  said  she. 


310  THE  CARAVANERS 

"I  think  bathing  might  do  them  good,"  I  said, 
determined  not  to  become  angry.  "Will  you  get 
me  some  hot  water,  please?" 

"Why?"  said  she. 

She  had  never  said  such  a  thing  to  me  before. 
I  could  only  gaze  at  her  in  a  profound  surprise. 

"Why?"  I  repeated  at  length,  keeping  studi- 
ously calm.  "What  an  extraordinary  question. 
I  could  give  you  a  thousand  reasons  if  I  chose, 
such  as  that  I  desire  to  bathe  them;  that  hot  water 
—  rather  luckily  for  itself  —  has  no  feet,  and 
therefore  has  to  be  fetched;  and  that  a  wife  has 
to  do  as  she  is  told.  But  I  will,  my  dear  Edel- 
gard,  confine  myself  to  the  counter  inquiry,  and 
ask  why  not?" 

"I,  too,  my  dear  Otto,"  said  she  —  and  she 
spoke  with  great  composure,  her  head  bent 
over  her  mending,  "could  give  you  a  thousand 
answers  to  that  if  I  chose,  such  as  that  I 
desire  to  get  this  sock  finished  —  yours,  by  the 
way;  that  I  have  walked  exactly  as  far  as 
you  have;  that  I  see  no  reason  why  you  should 
not,  as  there  are  no  se-rvants  here,  fetch  your 
own  hot  water;  and  that  your  wishing  or  not 
wishing  to  bathe  your  feet  has  really,  if  you 
come  to  think  of  it,  nothing  to  do  with  me. 
But  I  will  confine  myself  just  to  saying  that  I 
prefer  not  to  go." 

It  can  be  imagined  with  what  feelings  —  not 


THE  CARAVANERS  311 

mixed  but  unmitigated  —  I  listened  to  this.  And 
after  five  years!  Five  years  of  patience  and 
guidance. 

"  Is  this  my  Edelgard  ^ "  I  managed  to  say, 
recovering  speech  enough  for  those  four  words 
but  otherwise  struck  dumb. 

"Your  Edelgard?"  she  repeated  musingly  as 
she  continued  to  mend,  and  not  even  looking  at 
me.  "  Your  boots,  your  handkerchief,  your  gloves, 
your  socks  —  yes " 

I  confess  I  could  not  follow,  and  could  only 
listen  amazed. 

"But  not  your  Edelgard.  At  least,  not  more 
than  you  are  my  Otto." 

"But  —  my  boots  ?"  I  repeated,  really  dazed. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  folding  up  the  finished  sock, 
"they  really  are  yours.  Your  property.  But 
you  should  not  suppose  that  I  am  a  kind  of  living 
boot,  made  to  be  trodden  on.  I,  my  dear  Otto, 
am  a  human  being,  and  no  human  being  is  another 
human  being's  property." 

A  flash  of  light  illuminated  my  brain.  "Jel- 
laby!"Icried. 

"  Hullo  ? "  was  the  immediate  answer  from 
outside.     "Want  me.  Baron.?" 

"No,  no!  No,  no!  No,  NO!"  I  cried  leap- 
ing up  and  dragging  the  door  curtain  to,  as  though 
that  could  possibly  deaden  our  conversation.  "  He 
has  been  infecting  you,"  I  continued,  in  a  whisper 


312  THE  CARAVANERS 

so  much  charged  with  indignation  that  it  hissed, 
"with  his  poisonous " 

Then  I  recollected  that -he  could  probably  hear 
every  word,  and  muttering  an  imprecation  on 
caravans  I  relapsed  on  to  the  yellow  box  and  said 
with  forced  calm  as  I  scrutinized  her  face: 

"Dear  wife,  you  have  no  idea  how  exactly  you 
resemble  your  Aunt  Bockhiigel  when  you  put  on 
that  expression." 

For  the  first  time  this  failed  to  have  an  effect. 
Up  to  then  to  be  told  she  looked  like  her  Aunt 
Bockhiigel  had  always  brought  her  back  with  a 
jerk  to  smiles;  even  if  she  had  to  wrench  a  smile 
into  position  she  did  so,  for  the  Aunt  Bockhugel 
is  the  sore  point  in  Edelgard's  family,  the  spot,  the 
smudge  across  its  brightness,  the  excrescence  on 
its  tree,  the  canker  in  its  bud,  the  worm  destroy- 
ing its  fruit,  the  night  frost  paralyzing  its  blos- 
soms. She  cannot  be  suppressed.  She  cannot 
be  explained.  Everybody  knows  she  is  there. 
She  was  one  of  the  reasons  that  made  me  walk  about 
my  room  the  whole  of  the  night  before  I  proposed 
marriage  to  Edelgard,  a  prey  to  doubts  as  to  how 
far  a  man  may  go  in  recklessness  in  the  matter  of 
the  aunts  he  fastens  upon  his  possible  children. 
The  Ottringels  can  show  no  such  relatives;  at 
least  there  is  one,  but  she  looms  almost  equal  to 
the  rest  owing  to  the  mirage  created  by  fogs  of 
antiquity  and  distance.     But  Edelgard*s  aunt  is 


THE  CARAVANERS  313 

contemporary  and  conspicuous.  Of  a  vulgar  soul 
at  her  very  birth,  as  soon  as  she  came  of  age  she 
deliberately  left  the  ranks  of  the  nobility  and 
united  herself  to  a  dentist.  We  go  there  to  be 
treated  for  toothache,  because  they  take  us  (owing 
to  the  relationship)  on  unusually  favourable  terms ; 
otherwise  we  do  not  know  them.  There  is  how- 
ever an  undoubted  resemblance  to  Edelgard  in 
her  less  pleasant  moods,  a  thickened,  heavier,  and 
older  Edelgard,  and  my  wife,  well  aware  of  it 
(for  I  help  her  to  check  it  as  much  as  possible  by 
pointing  it  out  whenever  it  occurs)  has  been  on 
each  occasion  eager  to  readjust  her  features 
without  loss  of  time.  On  this  one  she  was  not. 
Nay,  she  relaxed  still  more,  and  into  a  profounder 
likeness. 

"It's  true,"  she  said,  not  even  looking  at  me 
but  staring  out  of  the  window;  "it's  true  about 
the  b^oots." 

"Aunt  Bockhiigel!  Aunt  Bockhiigel!"  I  cried 
softly,  clapping  my  hands. 

She  actually  took  no  notice,  but  continued 
to  stare  abstractedly  out  of  the  window;  and 
feeling  how  impossible  it  was  to  talk  really 
naturally  to  her  with  Jellaby  just  outside,  I 
chose  the  better  part  and  with  a  movement  I 
could  not  wholly  suppress  of  impatience  got  up 
and  left  her. 

Jellaby,    as    I    suspected,   was   sitting   on   the 


314  THE  CARAVANERS 

ground  leaning  against  one  of  our  wheels  as 
though  it  were  a  wheel  belonging  to  his  precious 
community  and  not  ours,  hired  and  paid  for. 
Was  it  possible  that  he  selected  this  wheel  out 
of  the  twelve  he  could  have  chosen  from  because 
it  was  my  wife's  wheel  ? 

"Do  you  want  anything?"  he  asked,  looking 
up  and  taking  his  pipe  out  of  his  mouth;  and  I 
just  had  enough  self-control  to  shake  my  head  and 
hurry  on,  for  I  felt  if  I  had  stopped  I  would  have 
fallen  upon  him  and  rattled  him  about  as  a  terrier 
rattles  a  rat. 

But  what  terrible  things  caravans  are  when  you 
have  to  share  one  with  a  person  with  whom  you 
have  reason  to  be  angry!  Of  all  their  sides  this  is 
beyond  doubt  the  worst;  worse  than  when  the 
rain  comes  in  on  to  your  bed,  worse  than  when 
the  wind  threatens  to  blow  them  over  during  the 
night,  or  half  of  them  sinks  into  the  mud  and  has 
to  be  dug  out  laboriously  in  the  morning.  It  may 
be  imagined  with  what  feelings  I  wandered  forth 
into  the  chill  evening,  homeless,  bearing  as  I  felt 
a  strong  resemblance  to  that  Biblical  dove  which 
was  driven  forth  from  the  shelter  of  the  ark  and 
had  no  idea  what  to  do  next.  Of  course  I  was 
not  going  to  fetch  the  hot  water  and  return  with 
it,  as  it  were  (to  pursue  my  simile),  in  my  beak. 
Every  husband  throughout  Germany* will  under- 
stand  the   impossibility   of  doing   that  —  picture 


THE  CARAVANERS  315 

Edelgard's  triumph  if  I  had!  Yet  I  could  not 
at  the  end  of  a  laborious  day  wander  indefinitely 
out-of-doors;   besides,  I  might  meet  the  pastor. 

The  rest  of  the  party  were  apparently  in  their 
caravans,  judging  from  the  streams  of  conversa- 
tion issuing  forth,  and  there  was  no  one  but  old 
James  reclining  on  a  sack  in  the  corner  of  a  distant 
shed  to  offer  me  the  solace  of  companionship. 
With  a  sudden  mounting  to  my  head  of  a  mighty 
wave  of  indignation  and  determination  not  to  be 
shut  out  of  my  own  caravan,  I  turned  and  quickly 
retraced  my  steps. 

"Hullo,  Baron,"  said  Jellaby,  still  propped 
against  my  wheel.    "Had  enough  of  it  already?" 

"More  than  enough  of  some  things,"  I  said, 
eyeing  him  meaningly  as  I  made  my  way,  much 
impeded  by  my  mackintosh,  up  the  ladder  at  an 
oblique  angle  (it  never  could  or  would  stand 
straight)  against  our  door. 

"For  instance?"  he  inquired. 

"I  am  unwell,"  I  answered  shortly,  evading  a 
quarrel  —  for  why  should  I  allow  myself  to  be 
angered  by  a  wisp  like  that  ?  —  and  entering  the 
Elsa  drew  the  curtain  sharply  to  on  his  expressions 
of  conventional  regret. 

Edelgard  had  not  changed  her  position.  She 
did  not  look  up. 

I  pulled  off  my  outer  garments  and  flung  them 
on  the  floor,  and  sitting  down  with  emphasis  on 


3i6  THE  CARAVANERS 

the  yellow  box  unlaced  and  kicked  off  my  boots 
and  pulled  off  my  stockings. 

Edelgard  raised  her  head  and  fixed  her  eyes  on 
me  with  a  careful  imitation  of  surprise. 

"What  is  it,  Otto?"  she  said.  "Have  you 
been  invited  out  to  dine  .? " 

I  suppose  she  considered  this  amusing,  but  of 
course  it  was  not,  and  I  jerked  myself  free  of  my 
braces  without  answering. 

"Won't  you  tell  me  what  it  is?"  she  asked 
again. 

For  all  answer  I  crawled  into  my  berth  and 
pulled  the  coverings  up  to  my  ears  and  turned 
my  face  to  the  wall;  for  indeed  I  was  at  the  end 
both  of  my  patience  and  my  strength.  I  had  had 
two  days'  running  full  of  disagreeable  incidents, 
and  Menzies-Legh's  fatal  drop  of  milk  seemed  at 
last  to  have  fallen  into  the  brightness  of  my 
original  strong  tea.  I  ached  enough  to  make  his 
prophesied  rheumatism  a  very  near  peril,  and  was 
not  at  all  sure  as  I  lay  there  that  it  had  not  already 
begun  its  work  upon  me,  beginning  it  with  an 
alarming  promise  of  system  and  thoroughness  at  the 
very  beginning,  /.  ^.,  my  feet. 

"Poor  Otto,"  said  Edelgard,  getting  up  and 
laying  her  hand  on  my  forehead;  adding,  after  a 
moment,  "It  is  nice  and  cool." 

"Cool?  I  should  think  so,"  said  I  shivering. 
"I  am  frozen." 


THE  CARAVANERS  317 

She  got  a  rug  out  of  the  yellow  box  and  laid  it 
over  me,  tucking  in  the  side. 

"So  tired?"  she  said  presently,  as  she  tidied 
up  my  clothes. 

"Ill,"  I  murmured. 

"What  is  it?" 

"Oh,  leave  me,  leave  me.  You  do  not  really 
care.     Leave  me." 

At  this  she  paused  in  her  occupation  to  gaze,  I 
fancy,  at  my  back  as  I  lay  resolutely  turned  away. 

"It  is  very  early  to  go  to  bed,"  she  said  after 
a  while. 

"Not  when  a  man  is  ill." 

"It  isn't  seven  yet." 

"Oh,  do  not,  I  beg  you,  argue  with  me.  If 
you  cannot  have  sympathy  you  can  at  least  leave 
me.     It  is  all  I  ask." 

This  silenced  her,  and  she  moved  about  the 
van  more  careful  not  to  sway  it,  so  that  presently 
I  was  able  to  fall  into  an  exhausted  sleep. 

How  long  this  lasted  I  could  not  on  suddenly 
waking  tell,  but  everything  had  grown  dark  and 
Edelgard,  as  I  could  hear,  was  asleep  above  me. 
Something  had  wrenched  me  out  of  the  depths  of 
slumber  in  which  I  was  sunk  and  had  brought  me 
up  again  with  a  jerk  to  that  surface  known  to  us 
as  sentient  life.  You  are  aware,  my  friends,  being 
also  living  beings  with  all  the  experiences  connected 
with  such  a  condition  behind  you,  you  are  aware 


3i8  THE  CARAVANERS 

what  such  a  jerking  is.  It  seems  to  be  a  series  of 
flashes.  The  first  flash  reminds  you  (with  an 
immense  shock)  that  you  are  not  as  you  for  one 
comfortable  instant  supposed  in  your  own  safe 
familiar  bed  at  home;  the  second  brings  back  the 
impression  of  the  loneliness  and  weirdness  of 
Frogs'  Hole  Farm  (or  its,  in  your  case,  local 
equivalent)  that  you  received  while  yet  it  was  day; 
the  third  makes  you  realize  with  a  clutching  at 
your  heart  that  something  happened  before  you 
woke  up,  and  that  something  is  presently  going  to 
happen  again.  You  lie  awake  waiting  for  it,  and 
the  entire  surface  of  your  body  becomes  as  you 
wait  uniformly  damp.  The  sound  of  a  person 
breathing  regularly  in  the  apartment  does  but  em- 
phasize your  loneliness.  I  confess  I  was  unable  to 
reach  out  for  matches  and  strike  a  light,  unable 
to  do  anything  under  that  strong  impression  that 
something  had  happened  except  remain  motionless 
beneath  the  bed-coverings.  This  was  no  shame  to 
me,  my  friends.  Face  me  with  cannon,  and  I  have 
the  courage  of  any  man  living,  but  place  me  on  the 
edge  of  the  supernatural  and  I  can  only  stay 
beneath  the  bedclothes  and  grow  most  lamentably 
damp.  Such  a  thin  skin  of  wood  divided  me  from 
the  night  outside.  Any  one  could  push  back  the 
window  standing  out  there ;  any  one  ordinarily  tall 
would  then  have  his  head  and  shoulders  practically 
inside  the  caravan.    And  there  was  no  dog  to 


THE  CARAVANERS  319 

warn  us  or  to  frighten  such  a  wretch  away.  And 
all  my  money  was  beneath  my  mattress,  the  worst 
place  possible  to  put  it  in  if  what  you  want  is  not 
to  be  personally  disturbed.  What  was  it  I  had 
heard.?  What  was  it  that  called  me  up  from 
the  depths  of  unconsciousness .?  As  the  moments 
passed  —  and  except  for  Edelgard's  regular 
breathing  there  was  only  an  awful  emptiness 
and  absence  of  sound  —  I  tried  to  persuade  my- 
self it  was  just  the  sausages  having  been  so  pink 
at  dinner;  and  the  tenseness  of  my  terror  had 
begun  slowly  to  relax  when  I  was  smitten  stark 
again  —  and  by  what,  my  friends  ?  By  the  tuning 
of  a  violin. 

Now  consider,  you  who  frequent  concerts  and 
see  nothing  disturbing  in  this  sound,  consider  our 
situation.  Consider  the  remoteness  from  the  high- 
way of  Frogs*  Hole  Farm ;  how  you  had,  in  order 
to  reach  it,  to  follow  the  prolonged  convolutions 
of  a  lane;  how  you  must  then  come  by  a  cart 
track  along  the  edge  of  a  hop-field;  how  the 
house  lay  alone  and  empty  in  a  hollow,  deserted, 
forlorn,  untidy,  out  of  repair.  Consider  further 
that  none  of  our  party  had  brought  a  violin  and 
none,  to  judge  from  the  absence  in  their  conversa- 
tion of  any  allusions  to  such  an  instrument,  played 
on 'it.  No  one  knows  who  has  not  heard  one 
tuned  under  the  above  conditions  the  blankness 
of  the  horror  it  can  strike  into  one*s  heart.     I 


320  THE  CARAVANERS 

listened,  stiff  with  fear.  It  was  tuned  with  a  care 
and  at  a  length  that  convinced  me  that  the  spirit 
turning  its  knobs  must  be  of  a  quite  unusual 
musical  talent,  possessed  of  an  acutely  sensitive 
ear.  How  came  it  that  no  one  else  heard  it? 
Was  it  possible  —  I  curdled  at  the  thought  —  that 
only  myself  of  the  party  had  been  chosen  by  the 
powers  at  work  for  this  ghastly  privilege  ?  When 
the  thing  broke  into  a  wild  dance,  and  a  great  and 
rhythmical  stamping  of  feet  began  apparently  quite 
near  and  yet  equally  apparently  on  boards,  I  was 
seized  with  a  panic  that  relaxed  my  stiffness  into 
action  and  enabled  me  to  thump  the  underneath  of 
Edelgard's  mattress  with  both  my  fists,  and  thump 
and  thump  with  a  desperate  vigour  that  did  at  last 
rouse  her. 

Being  half  asleep  she  was  more  true  to  my 
careful  training  than  when  perfectly  awake, 
and  on  hearing  my  shouts  she  unhesitatingly 
tumbled  out  of  her  berth  and  leaning  into 
mine  asked  me  with  some  anxiety  what  the 
matter  was. 

"The  matter?  Do  you  not  hear?"  I  said, 
clutching  her  arm  with  one  hand  and  holding  up 
the  other  to  enjoin  silence. 

She  woke  up  entirely. 

"Why,  what  in  the  world "  she  said.     Then 

pulling  a  window  curtain  aside  she  peeped  out. 
"There's  only  the  Ailsa  there,'*  she  said,  "dark 


THE  CARAVANERS  321 

and  quiet.  And  only  the  Ilsa  here,'*  she  added, 
peeping  through  the  opposite  curtain,  "dark 
and  quiet." 

I  looked  at  her,  marvelling  at  the  want  of 
imagination  in  women  that  renders  it  possible 
for  them  to  go  on  being  stolid  in  the  presence 
of  what  seemed  undoubtedly  the  supernatural. 
Unconsciously  this  stolidity,  however,  made  me  feel 
more  like  myself;  but  when  on  her  going  to  the 
door  and  unbolting  it  and  looking  out  she  made 
an  exclamation  and  hastily  shut  it  again,  I  sank 
back  on  my  pillow  once  more  hors  de  comhat,  so 
great  was  the  shock.  Face  me,  I  say,  with  cannon, 
and  I  can  do  anything  but  expect  nothing  of  me 
if  it  is  ghosts. 

"Otto,*'  she  whispered,  holding  the  door,  "come 
and  look." 

I  could  not  speak. 

"Get  up  and  come  and  look,"  she  whispered 
again. 

Well  my  friends  I  had  to,  or  lose  forever  my 
moral  hold  of  and  headship  over  her.  Besides, 
I  was  drawn  somehow  to  the  fatal  door.  How 
I  got  out  of  my  berth  and  along  the  cold 
floor  of  the  caravan  to  the  end  I  cannot  con- 
ceive. I  was  obliged  to  help  myself  along,  I 
remember,  by  sliding  my  hand  over  the  surface 
of  the  yellow  box.  I  muttered,  I  remember,  "I 
am  ill  —  I  am  ill,"  and  truly  never  did  a  man 


322  ,    THE  CARAVANERS 

feel  more  so.  And  when  I  got  to  the  door 
and  looked  through  the  crack  she  opened,  what 
did  I  see  ? 

I  saw  the  whole  of  the  lower  windows  of  the 
farmhouse  ablaze  with  candles. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

MY  hearers  will  I  hope  appreciate  the  frank- 
ness with  which  I  show  them  all  my  sides, 
good  and  bad.  I  do  so  with  my  eyes  open,  aware 
that  some  of  you  may  very  possibly  think  less 
well  of  me  for  having  been,  for  instance,  such  a  prey 
to  supernatural  dread.  Allow  me,  however,  to 
point  out  that  if  you  do  you  are  wrong.  You 
suffer  from  a  confusion  of  thought.  And  I  will 
show  you  why.  My  wife,  you  will  have  noticed, 
had  on  the  occasion  described  few  or  no  fears. 
Did  this  prove  courage  ?  Certainly  not.  It 
merely  proved  the  thicker  spiritual  skin  of  woman. 
Quite  without  that  finer  sensibility  that  has  made 
men  able  to  produce  works  of  genius  while  women 
have  been  able  only  to  produce  (a  merely  mechanical 
process)  young,  she  felt  nothing  apparently  but 
a  bovine  surprise.  Clearly,  if  you  have  no  imagin- 
ation neither  can  you  have  any  fears.  A  dead 
man  is  not  frightened.  An  almost  dead  man  does 
not  care  much  either.  The  less  dead  a  man  is 
the  more  do  possible  combinations  suggest  them- 
selves to  him.  It  is  imagination  and  sensibility, 
or  the  want  of  them,  that  removes  you  further  or 

323 


324  THE  CARAVANERS 

brings  you  nearer  to  the  animals.  Consequently 
(I  trust  I  am  being  followed  ?)  when  imagination 
and  sensibility  are  busiest,  as  they  were  during 
those  moments  I  lay  waiting  and  listening  in  my 
berth,  you  reach  the  highest  point  of  aloofness 
from  the  superiority  to  the  brute  creation;  your 
vitality  is  at  its  greatest;  you  are,  in  a  word,  if  I 
may  be  permitted  to  coin  an  epigram,  least  dead. 
Therefore,  my  friends,  it  is  plain  that  at  that  very 
moment  when  you  (possibly)  may  have  thought 
I  was  showing  my  weakest  side  I  was  doing  the 
exact  opposite,  and  you  will  not,  having  intelligently 
followed  the  argument,  say  at  the  end  of  it  as  my 
poor  little  wife  did,  *  *  But  how  ? " 

I  do  not  wish,  however,  to  leave  you  longer 
under  the  impression  that  the  deserted  farmhouse 
was  haunted.  It  may  have  been  of  course,  but  it 
was  not  on  that  night  of  last  August.  What  was 
happening  was  that  a  party  from  the  parsonage  — 
a  holiday  party  of  young  and  rather  inclined  to  be 
noisy  people,  which  had  overflowed  the  bounds  of 
the  accommodation  there  —  was  utilizing  the  long, 
empty  front  room  as  an  impromptu  (I  believe 
that  is  the  expression)  ball-room.  The  farm 
belonged  to  the  pastor  —  observe  the  fatness  of 
these  British  ecclesiastics  —  and  it  was  the  practice 
of  his  family  during  the  hoHdays  to  come  down 
sometimes  in  the  evening  and  dance  in  it.  All 
this  I  found  out  after  Edelgard  had  dressed  and 


THE  CARAVANERS  325 

gone  across  to  see  for  herself  what  the  lights  and 
stamping  meant.  She  insisted  on  doing  so  in 
spite  of  my  warnings,  and  came  back  after  a  long 
interval  to  tell  me  the  above,  her  face  flushed  and 
her  eyes  bright,  for  she  had  seized  the  opportunity, 
regardless  of  what  I  might  be  feeling  waiting  alone, 
to  dance  too. 

"You  danced  too?"     I  exclaimed. 

"Do  come.  Otto.     It  is  such  fun,"  said  she. 

"With  whom  did  you  dance,  may  I  inquire?" 
I  asked,  for  the  thought  of  the  Baroness  von 
Ottringel  dancing  with  the  first  comer  in  a  foreign 
farm  was  of  course  most  disagreeable  to  me. 

"Mr.  Jcllaby,"  said  she.     "Do  come." 

"Jellaby?     What  is  he  doing  there?" 

"Dancing.  And  so  is  everybody.  They  are 
all  there.  That's  why  their  caravans  were  so  quiet. 
Do  come." 

And  she  ran  out  again,  a  childishly  eager  expres- 
sion on  her  face,  into  the  night. 

"Edelgard!"  I  called. 

But  though  she  must  have  heard  me  she  did 
not  come  back. 

Relieved,  puzzled,  vexed,  and  curious  together, 
I  did  get  up  and  dress,  and  on  lighting  a  candle 
and  looking  at  my  watch  I  was  astonished  to  find 
that  it  was  only  a  quarter  to  ten.  For  a  moment  I 
could  not  credit  my  eyes,  and  I  shook  the  watch 
and    held    it    to    my    ears,    but    it   was   going, 


326  THE  CARAVANERS 

as  steadily  as  usual,  and  all  I  could  do  was  to 
reflect  as  I  dressed  on  what  may  happen  to 
you  if  you  go  to  bed  and  to  sleep  at  seven 
o'clock. 

And  how  soundly  I  must  have  done  it.  But 
of  course  I  was  unusually  weary,  and  not  feeling 
at  all  well.  Two  hours'  excellent  sleep,  however, 
had  done  wonders  for  me  so  great  are  my  recupera- 
tive powers,  and  I  must  say  I  could  not  help 
smiling  as  I  crossed  the  yard  and  went  up  to  the 
house  at  the  remembrance  of  Menzies-Legh's 
glass  of  tea.  He  would  not  see  much  milk  abou^ 
me  now,  thought  I,  as  I  strode,  giving  my 
moustache  ends  a  final  upward  push  and  guided 
by  the  music,  into  the  room  in  which  they  were 
dancing. 

The  dance  came  to  an  end  as  I  entered,  and  a 
sudden  hush  seemed  to  fall  upon  the  company. 
It  was  composed  of  boys  and  young  girls  attired  in 
evening  garments  next  to  which  the  clothes  of  the 
caravaners,  weather-beaten  children  of  the  road, 
looked  odd  and  grimy  indeed.  The  tender  lady, 
it  is  true,  had  put  on  a  white  and  cobwebby  kind 
of  blouse,  which  together  with  her  short  walking 
skirt  and  the  innocent  droop  of  her  fair  hair  about 
her  little  ears  made  her  look  at  the  most  eighteen, 
and  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  had  tricked  herself  out 
in  white  too,  producing  indeed  for  our  admira- 
tion a  white  skirt  as  well  as  a  white  blouse,  and 


THE  CARAVANERS  327 

achieving  at  the  most  by  these  efforts  an  air  of 
(no  doubt  spurious)  cleanliness;  but  the  others 
were  still  all  spattered  and  disfigured  by  the 
muddy  accumulations  of  the  past  day. 

Though  they  stopped  dancing  as  I  came  in  I 
had  time  to  receive  a  photograph  on  my  mind's 
eye  of  the  various  members  of  our  party:  of 
Jellaby,  loose-collared  and  wispy-haired,  gyrating 
with  poor  Frau  von  Eckthum,  of  Edelgard,  flushed 
with  childish  enjoyment,  in  the  grip  of  a  boy  who 
might  very  well  have  been  her  own  if  I  had  married 
her  a  few  years  sooner  and  if  it  were  conceivable 
that  I  could  ever  have  produced  anything  so 
undeveloped  and  half-grown,  and  of,  if  you 
please,  Menzies-Legh  in  all  his  elderliness,  dancing 
with  an  object  the  short  voluminousness  of  whose 
clothing  proclaimed  a  condition  of  unripeness 
even  greater  than  that  of  the  two  fledglings — 
dancing,  in  a  word,  with  a  child. 

That  he  should  dance  at  all  was,  you  will 
agree,  sufficiently  unworthy  but  at  least  if  he 
must  make  himself  publicly  foolish  he  might  have 
done  it  with  some  one  more  suited  to  his  years, 
some  one  of  the  age  of  the  lady,  for  instance  — 
singularly  unlike  one's  idea  of  a  ghost  —  standing 
at  the  upper  end  of  the  room  playing  the  violin 
that  had  half  an  hour  previously  been  so  incom- 
prehensible to  me. 

On   seeing   me   enter   he   stopped   dead,   and 


328  THE  CARAVANERS 

his  face  resumed  the  familiar  look  of  lowering 
gloom.  The  other  couples  followed  his  example, 
and  the  violin,  after  a  brief  hesitation,  whined 
away  into  passivity. 

"Capital,"  said  I  heartily  to  Menzies-Legh, 
who  happened  to  have  been  in  the  act  of  dancing 
past  the  door  I  came  in  by.  "Capital.  Enjoy 
yourself,  my  friend.  You  are  doing  admirably 
well  for  what  you  told  me  is  a  weed.  In  a  German 
ball-room  you  would,  I  assure  you,  create  an 
immense  sensation,  for  it  is  not  the  custom 
there  for  gentlemen  over  thirty  —  which,"  I 
amended,  bowing,  "I  may  be  entirely  wrong  in 
presuming  that  you  are  —  for  gentlemen  over 
thirty " 

But  he  interrupted  me  to  remark  with  the 
intelligence  that  characterized  him  (after  all,  what 
ailed  the  man  was,  I  believe,  principally  stupidity) 
that  this  was  not  a  German  ball-room. 

"Ah,"  said  I,  "you  are  right  there,  my  friend. 
That  indeed  is  what  you  English  call  a  different 
pair  of  shoes.  If  it  were,  do  you  know  where 
the  gentlemen  over  thirty  would  be  ? " 

He  spoiled  the  neat  answer  I  had  all  ready  of 
"Not  there"  by,  instead  of  seeking  information, 
observing  with  his  customary  boorishness,  "Con- 
found the  gentlemen  over  thirty,"  and  walking 
his  long-stockinged  partner  away. 

"Otto,"  whispered  my  wife,  hurrying  up,  "you 


THE  CARAVANERS  329 

must  come  and  be  introduced  to  the  people  who 
are  kindly  letting  us  dance  here." 

"Not  unless  they  are  of  decent  birth,"  I  said 
firmly. 

"Whether  they  are  or  not  you  must  come/* 
said  she.     "The  lady  who  is  playing  is " 

"I  know,  I  know,  she  is  a  ghost,"  said  I,  unable 
to  forbear  smiling  at  my  own  jest;  and  I  think 
my  hearers  will  agree  that  a  man  who  can  make 
fun  of  himself  may  certainly  be  said  to  be  at 
least  fairly  equipped   with   a   sense   of  humour. 

Edelgard  stared.  "She  is  the  pastor's  wife," 
she  said.  "It  is  her  party.  It  is  so  kind  of 
her  to  let  us  in.  You  must  come  and  be 
introduced." 

"She  is  a  ghost,"  I  persisted,  gready  diverted 
by  the  notion,  for  I  felt  a  reaction  of  cheerfulness, 
and  never  was  a  lady  more  substantial  than  the 
one  with  the  violin;  "she  is  a  ghost,  and  a  highly 
unattractive  specimen  of  the  sect.  Dear  wife, 
only  ghosts  should  be  introduced  to  other  ghosts. 
I  am  flesh  and  blood,  and  will  therefore  go  instead 
and  release  the  little  Eckthum  from  the  flesh  and 
blood  persistencies  of  Jellaby." 

"But  Otto,  you  must  come,"  said  Edelgard, 
laying  her  hand  on  my  arm  as  I  prepared  to  move  in 
the  direction  of  the  charmmg  victim;  "you  can't 
be  rude.     She  is  your  hostess " 

"She  is  my  ghostess,"  said  I,  very  divertingly  I 


330  THE  CARAVANERS 

thought;  so  divertingly  that  I  was  seized  by  a 
barely  controllable  desire  to  indulge  in  open  mirth. 

Edelgard,  however,  with  the  blank  incompre- 
hension of  the  droll  so  often  to  be  observed  in 
women,  did  not  so  much  as  smile. 

"Otto,"  said  she,  "you  absolutely  must " 

"Must,  dear  wife,'*  said  I  with  returning 
gravity,  "is  a  word  no  woman  of  tact  ever  lets 
her  husband  hear.  I  see  no  must  why  I,  being 
who  I  am,  should  request  an  introduction  to  a 
Frau  Pastor.  I  would  not  in  Storchwerder. 
Still  less  will  I  at  Frog's  Hole  Farm." 

"  But  you  are  her  guest " 

"I  am  not.     I  came." 

"But  it  is  so  nice  of  her  to  allow  you  to  come." 

"It  is  not  niceness.  She  is  delighted  at  the 
honour." 

" But  Otto,  you  simply  cant " 

I  was  about  to  move  off  definitely  to  the  corner 
where  Frau  von  Eckthum  sat  helpless  in  the  talons 
of  Jellaby  when  who  should  enter  the  door  just 
in  front  of  which  Edelgard  was  wrangling  but  the 
creature  I  had  last  parted  from  on  unfriendly  terms 
in  the  church  a  few  hours  before. 

Attired  this  time  from  chin  to  boots  in  a  long 
and  narrow  buttoned-down  black  garment  sugges- 
tive of  that  of  the  Pope's  priests,  with  a  gold  cross 
dangling  on  his  chest,  his  eye  immediately  caught 
mine  and  the  genial  smile  of  the  party-giver  with 


THE  CARAVANERS  331 

which  he  had  come  in  died  away.  Evidently  he 
had  been  there  earher,  for  Edelgard  as  though 
she  were  well  acquainted  with  him  darted  forward 
(where,  alas,  remained  the  dignity  of  the  well- 
born ?)  and  very  officiously  introduced  me  to  him. 
Me  to  him,  observe. 

"Let  me,"  said  my  wife,  "introduce  m^'^  hus- 
band. Baron  Ottringel." 

And  she  did. 

It  was  of  course  the  pastor  who  ought  to  have 
been  introduced  to  me  on  such  neutral  ground  as 
an  impromptu  ball-room,  but  Edelgard  had,  as  the 
caravan  tour  lengthened,  acquired  the  habit  of 
using  the  presence  of  a  third  person  in  order  to  do 
as  she  chose,  with  no  reference  whatever  to  my 
known  wishes.  This  is  a  habit  specially  annoying 
to  a  man  of  my  disposition,  peppery  perhaps,  but 
essentially  bon  enfant,  who  likes  to  get  his  cautions 
and  reprimands  over  and  done  with  and  forgotten, 
rather  than  be  forced  to  allow  them  to  accumulate 
and  brood  over  them  indefinitely. 

Rendered  helpless  by  my  own  good  breeding  — 
a  quality  which  leads  to  many  a  discomfort  in  life 
—  I  was  accordingly  introduced  for  all  the  world 
as  though  I  were  the  inferior,  and  could  only 
show  my  sensibility  of  the  fact  by  a  conspicuous 
stiffening. 

"Otto  thinks  it  is  so  very  kind  of  you  to  let  us 
come  in,"  said  Edelgard,  all  smiles  and  with  an 


332  THE  CARAVANERS 

augmentation  of  officiousness  and  defiance  of  me 
that  was  incredible. 

"I  am  glad  you  were  able  to,"  replied  the  pastor 
looking  at  me,  politeness  in  his  voice  and  chill  in 
his  eye.  It  was  plain  the  creature  was  still  angry 
because,  in  church,  I  would  not  pray. 

"You  are  very  good,"  said  I,  bowing  with  at 
least  an  equal  chill. 

"Otto  wishes,"  continued  the  shameless  Edel- 
gard,  reckless  of  the  private  hours  with  me  ahead, 
"to  be  introduced  to  your  —  to  Mrs.  —  Mrs. " 

"Raggett,"  supplied  the  pastor. 

And  I  would  certainly  have  been  dragged  up 
then  and  there  to  the  round  red  ghost  at  the  top 
of  the  room  while  Edelgard,  no  doubt,  triumphed 
in  the  background,  if  it  had  not  itself  come  to  the 
rescue  by  striking  up  another  tune  on  its  fiddle. 

"Presently,"  said  the  pastor,  now  become 
crystallized  for  me  into  Raggett.  "Presently. 
Then  with  pleasure." 

And  his  glassy  eye,  fixed  on  mine,  had  little 
of  pleasure  in  it. 

At  this  point  Edelgard  danced  away  with  Jellaby 
from  under  my  very  nose.  I  made  an  instinctive 
movement  toward  the  slender  figure  alone  in  the 
corner,  but  even  as  I  moved  a  half-grown  boy 
secured  her  and  hurried  her  off  among  the  dancers. 
Looking  round,  I  saw  no  one  else  I  could  go  and 
talk  to;   even  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  was  not  avail- 


THE  CARAVANERS  333 

able.  There  was  nothing  for  it,  therefore,  but 
unadulterated  Raggett. 

"It  is  nice,"  observed  this  person,  watching  the 
dancers  —  he  had  a  hooky  profile  as  well  as  a 
glassy  eye  —  "to  see  young  people  enjoying 
themselves." 

I  bowed,  determined  to  keep  within  the  limits  of 
strict  iciness;  but  as  Jellaby  and  my  wife  whirled 
past  I  could  not  forbear  adding: 

"Especially  when  the  young  people  are  so 
mature  that  they  are  fully  aware  of  the  extent  of 
their  own  enjoyment." 

"Yes,"  said  he;  without,  however,  any  real 
responsiveness. 

"It  is  only,"  said  I,  "when  a  woman  is  mature, 
and  more  than  mature,  that  she  begins  to  enjoy 
being  young." 

"Yes,"  said  he;  still  with  no  real  responsiveness. 

"You  may  possibly,"  said  I,  nettled  by  this 
indifference,  "regard  that  as  a  paradox." 

"No,"  said  he. 

"It  is, however,"  said  I  more  loudly,  "not  one." 

"No,"  said  he. 

"It  is  on  the  contrary,"  said  I  still  louder,  "a 
rather  subtle  but  undeniable  truth." 

"Yes,"  said  he;  and  I  then  perceived  that  he 
was  not  listening. 

I  do  not  know  what  my  hearers  feel,  but  I 
fancy  they  feel  with  me  that  when  a  gentleman  of 


334  THE  CARAVANERS 

birth  and  position  is  amiable  enough  to  talk  to  a 
person  of  neither  it  is  particularly  galling  to  dis- 
cover that  that  person  is  so  unable  to  grasp  the 
true  aspect  of  the  situation  as  to  neglect  even  to 
follow  the  conversation-  Good  breeding  (as  I  have 
before  remarked,  a  great  hinderer)  prevents  one's 
explaining  who  one  is  and  emphasizing  who  the 
other  person  is  and  doing  then  and  there  a  sum 
of  subtraction  between  one's  own  value  and  his 
and  offering  him  the  result  for  his  closer  inspection, 
so  what  is  one  to  do  ?  Stiffen  and  go  dumb,  I 
suppose.  Good  breeding  allows  no  more.  Alas, 
there  are  many  and  heavy  drawbacks  to  being  a 
gentleman. 

Raggett  had  evidently  not  been  listening  to  a 
word  I  said,  for  after  his  last  abstracted  **Yes," 
he  suddenly  turned  the  glassiness  of  his  eye  full 
upon  me. 

"I  did  not  know,"  he  said,  "when  I  saw  you 
in  church "  ' 

Really  the  breeding  that  could  go  back  to  the 
church  and  what  happened  there  was  too  bad  for 
words.  My  impulse  was  to  stop  him  by  saying 
**  Shall  we  dance  V'  but  I  was  too  uncertain  of  the 
extent,  nay  of  the  existence,  of  his  powers  of 
seeing  fun  to  venture. 

"  —  that  you  were  not  English,  or  I  should 
not  have  asked " 

"Sir,"  I  interrupted,  endeavouring  to  get  him 


'     THE  CARAVANERS  335 

at  all  cost  out  of  the  church,  "who,  after  all,  is 
English?" 

He  looked  surprised.  "Well,*'  said  he,  "I  am." 
"Why,  you  do  not  know.  You  cannot  possibly 
be  certain.  Go  back  a  thousand  years  and,  as  I 
lately  read  in  an  ingenious  but  none  the  less  prob- 
ably right  book,  the  whole  of  Europe  was  filled 
with  your  fathers  and  mothers.  Starting  with 
your  two  parents  and  four  grandparents  and  going 
backward  multiplying  as  you  go,  the  sixteen  great- 
grandparents  are  already  almost  unmanageable, 
and  a  century  or  two  further  back  you  find  them 
irrepressibly  overflowing  your  little  island  and 
spreading  themselves  across  Europe  as  thickly  and 
as  adhesively  as  so  much  jam,  until  in  days  a 
trifle  more  remote  not  a  person  living  of  white 
skin  but  was  your  father,  unless  he  was  your 
mother.  Take,"  I  continued,  as  he  showed  signs 
of  wanting  to  interrupt  —  "take  any  example  you 
choose,  you  will  find  the  same  inextricable  con- 
fusion everywhere.  And  not  only  physically  — 
spiritually.  Take  any  example.  Anything  at  ran- 
dom. Take  our  late  lamented  Kaiser  Friedrich, 
who  married  a  daughter  of  your  royal  house.  It 
is  our  custom  to  regard  and  even  to  call  our 
Kaiser  and  Kaiserin  the  Father  and  Mother  of  the 
nation.  The  entire  nation  therefore  is,  in  a 
spiritual  sense,  half  English.  So,  accordingly, 
am   I.     So,    accordingly,    to   push    the    point   a 


336  THE  CARAVANERS 

step  further,  you  become  their  nephew,  and  there- 
fore a  quarter  German  —  a  spiritual  German 
quarter,  even  as  I  am  a  spiritual  English  half. 
There  is  no  end  to  the  confusion.  Have  you 
observed,  sir,  that  the  moment  one  begins  to 
think  everything  does  become  confused .? " 

"Are  you  not  dancing?"  said  he,  fidgetting 
and  looking  about  him. 

I  think  one  is  often  angry  with  people  because, 
having  assumed  on  first  acquaintance  that  they  are 
on  one's  own  level  of  intelligence,  their  speech 
and  actions  presently  prove  that  they  are  not. 
This  is  unjust;  but,  like  most  unjust  things, 
natural.  I,  however,  as  a  reasonable  man  do  my 
best  to  fight  against  it,  and  on  Raggett's  asking 
this  question  for  all  response  to  the  opportunity  I 
gave  him  of  embarking  on  an  interesting  discus- 
sion, I  checked  my  natural  annoyance  by  realizing 
that  he  was  what  Menzies-Legh  probably  was, 
merely  stupid.  Stupidity,  my  hearers  will  agree, 
is  of  various  kinds,  and  one  kind  is  want  of  interest 
in  what  is  interesting.  Of  course  this  particular 
stupid  was  hopelessly  ill-bred  besides,  for  what 
can  be  more  so  than  meeting  a  series  of,  to  put 
them  at  their  lowest,  suggestive  remarks  by 
inquiring  if  one  is  not  dancing  ? 

"My  dear  sir,"  I  said,  preserving  my  own 
manners  at  least,  "in  my  country  it  is  not  the 
custom  for  married  gentlemen  over  thirty  to  dance. 


THE  CARAVANERS  337 

Perhaps  you  were  paying  me  the  compHment 
(often,  I  must  say,  paid  me  before)  of  supposing 
I  am  not  yet  that  age,  but  I  assure  you  that  I  am. 
Nor  do  ladies  continue  to  dance  in  our  country 
once  their  early  youth  is  past  and  their  outhnes 
become  —  shall  we  say,  bolder  ?  Seats  are  then 
provided  for  them  round  the  walls,  and  on  them 
they  remain  in  suitable  passivity  until  the  oasis 
afforded  by  the  Lancers  is  reached,  when  the 
elder  gentlemen  pour  gallantly  out  of  the  room  in 
which  they  play  cards  all  the  evening  and  lead 
them  through  its  intricacies  with  the  ceremony  that 
satisfies  Society's  sense  of  the  becoming.  In  this 
country,  on  the  contrary " 

"Really,"  he  interrupted,  his  habit  of  fidgetting 
more  pronounced  than  ever,  "you  talk  English 
with  such  a  flow  and  volume  that  after  all  you 
very  well  might  have  joined " 

I  now  saw  that  the  man  was  a  fanatic,  a  type 
of  unbalanced  person  I  have  always  particularly 
disliked.  Good  breeding  is  little  if  at  all  appre- 
ciated by  fanatics,  and  I  might  have  been  excused 
if,  at  this  point,  I  had  flung  mine  to  the  winds.  I 
did  not  do  so,  however,  but  merely  interrupted 
him  in  my  turn  by  informing  him  with  cold 
courteousness  that  I  was  a  Lutheran. 

"And  Lutherans,"  I  added,  "do  not  pray.  At 
least,  not  audibly,  and  certainly  never  in  duets. 
More,"  I  continued,  putting  up  my  hand  as  he 


338  THE  CARAVANERS 

opened  his  mouth  to  speak,  "more.  I  am  a 
philosopher,  and  the  prayers  of  a  philosopher 
cannot  be  confined  within  the  limits  of  any  formula. 
Formulas  are  for  the  undeveloped.  You  tie 
a  child  into  its  chair  lest,  untied,  it  should  fall 
disastrously  to  the  floor.  You  tie  the  undeveloped 
adult  to  a  creed  lest,  untied,  he  should  fall  good- 
ness really  knows  where.  The  grown  man,  of 
full  stature  in  mind  as  well  as  body,  requires  no 
tying.  His  whole  life  is  his  creed.  Nothing 
cut  and  dried,  nothing  blatant,  nothing  gaudily 
apparent  to  the  outside  world,  but  a  subtle  satura- 
tion, a  continual  soaking " 

"Excuse  me,"  said  he,  "one  of  those  candles 
is  guttering." 

And  he  hurried  across  the  room  with  an  expedi- 
tion I  would  not  have  thought  possible  in  a  man 
so  gray  and  glassy  to  where,  in  the  windows,  the 
illuminating  rows  of  candles  had  been  placed. 

Nor  did  he  come  back,  I  am  glad  to  say,  for  I 
found  him  terribly  fatiguing;  and  I  remained 
alone,  leaning  against  the  wall  by  the  door. 

Down  at  the  further  end  of  the  room  danced 
my  gentle  friend,  and  also  her  sister;  also  all  the 
other  members  of  our  party  except  Menzies-Legh 
who,  recalled  to  decency  by  my  good-natured 
shafts,  spent  the  rest  of  his  time  soberly  either 
helping  the  pastor  pinch  off  candle-wicks  or  turn- 
ing over  the  ghost's  music  for  it. 


THE  CARAVANERS  339 

Desiring  to  watch  Frau  von  Eckthum  more 
conveniently  (for  I  assure  you  it  was  a  pretty 
sight  to  see  her  grace,  and  how  the  same  tune 
that  made  my  wife  whirl  moved  her  to  nothing 
more  ruffling  than  an  appearance  of  being  wafted) 
and  also  in  order  to  be  at  hand  should  Jellaby 
become  too  tactless,  I  went  down  to  where  our 
party  seemed  to  be  gathered  in  a  knot  and  took 
up  my  position  near  them  against  another  portion 
of  the  wall. 

I  had  hardly  done  so  before  they  seemed  to 
have  melted  away  to  the  upper  end. 

As  they  did  not  come  back  I  presently  strolled 
after  them.  They  then  appeared  to  melt  back 
again  to  the  bottom. 

It  was  very  odd.  It  was  almost  like  an  optical 
illusion.  When  I  went  up,  they  went  down; 
when  I  went  down,  they  went  up.  I  felt  at  last 
as  one  may  feel  who  plays  at  see-saw,  and  began 
to  doubt  whether  I  were  really  on  firm  ground 
—  on  terra  cottOy  as  I  (amusingly,  I  thought) 
called  it  to  Edelgard  when  we  alighted  from 
the  steamer  at  Queenboro',  endeavouring  to 
restore  her  spirits  and  make  her  laugh.  (Quite 
in  vain  I  may  add,  which  inclined  me  to  wonder, 
I  remember,  whether  the  illiteracy  which  is  one  of 
the  leading  characteristics  of  people's  wives  had 
made  it  impossible  for  her  to  understand  even  so 
simple  a  classical  play  on  words  as  that.     In  the 


340  THE  CARAVANERS  . 

train  I  realized  that  it  was  not  illiteracy  but  the 
crossing;  and  I  will  say  for  Edelgard  that  up  to 
the  time  the  English  spirit  of  criticism  got,  like  a 
devasting  microbe,  hold  of  her  German  womanli- 
ness, she  had  invariably  laughed  when  I  chose 
to  jest.) 

But  gradually  the  profitless  see-sawing  began  to 
tire  me.  The  dance  ended,  another  began,  and 
still  my  little  white-bloused  friend  had  not  once 
been  within  reach.  I  made  a  determined  effort  to 
get  to  her  in  the  pauses  between  the  dances  in 
order  to  offer  to  break  the  German  rule  on  her 
behalf  and  give  her  one  dance  (for  I  fancy  she  was 
vexed  that  I  did  not)  and  also  to  help  her  out  of 
the  clutches  of  Jellaby,  but  I  might  as  well  have 
tried  to  dance  with  and  help  a  moonbeam.  She 
was  here,  she  was  there,  she  was  everywhere, 
except  where  I  happened  to  be.  Once  I  had 
almost  achieved  success  when,  just  as  I  was  sure 
of  her,  she  ran  up  to  the  ghost  resting  at  that 
moment  from  its  labours  and  embarked  in  an 
apparently  endless  and  absorbing  discussion  with 
it,  deaf  and  blind  to  all  beside;  and  as  I  had 
made  up  my  mind  that  nothing  would  induce  me 
to  extend  my  Raggett  acquaintance  by  causing 
myself  to  be  introduced  to  the  psychical  pheno- 
menon bearing  that  name,  I  was  forced  to  retreat. 

Moodily,  though.  My  first  hilarity  was  extin- 
guished.    Bon  enfant  though  I  am  I  cannot  go 


THE  CARAVANERS  341 

on  being  bon  enfant  forever  —  I  must  have,  so  to 
speak,  the  encouragement  of  a  bottle  at  intervals; 
and  I  was  thinking  of  taking  Edelgard  away  and 
giving  her,  before  the  others  returned  to  their 
caravans,  a  brief  description  of  what  maturity  com- 
bined with  calf-like  enjoyment  looks  like  to  by- 
standers, when  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  passing  on 
the  arm  of  a  partner  caught  sight  of  my  face,  let 
her  partner  go,  and  came  up  to  me. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said  (and  she  had  at  least 
the  grace  to  hesitate),  "it  would  be  no  good 
asking  —  asking  you  to  —  dance  ^" 

I  stared  at  her  in  undisguised  astonishment. 

"Are  you  not  dreadfully  bored,  standing  there 
alone?"  she  said,  as  I  did  not  answer.  "Won't 
you  —  "  (again  she  had  the  grace  to  hesitate)  — 
"won't  you  —  dance  ?" 

Pointedly,  and  still  staring  amazed,  I  inquired 
of  her  with  whom,  for  really  I  could  hardly 
believe " 

"With  me,  if — if  you  will,"  said  she,  a  rather 
lame  attempt  at  a  smile  and  a  distinctly  anxious 
look  in  her  eyes  showing  that  at  least  it  was  only 
a  momentary  aberration. 

Momentary  or  not,  however,  I  am  not  the  man 
to  smile  with  feigned  gratification  when  what  is 
needed  is  rebuke,  especially  in  the  case  of  this 
lady  who  of  all  others  needed  one  so  often  and 
so  badly. 


342  THE  CARAVANERS 

"Why,"  I  exclaimed,  not  caring  to  conceal  my 
opinion,  "why  —  this  is  matriarchy!" 

And  turning  on  my  heel  I  made  my  way  at 
once  to  my  wife,  stopped  her  whirlings,  drew  her 
away  from  her  partner's  arm  (Jellaby's,  by  the 
way),  made  her  take  her  husband's  and  without  a 
word  led  her  out  of  the  room. 

But,  as  I  passed  the  door  I  saw  the  look  of  (I 
should  think  pretended)  astonishment  of  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh's  face  give  way  to  the  appearance 
of  the  dimple,  to  a  sudden  screwing  together  of 
the  upper  and  lower  eyelashes,  and  my  friends 
will  be  able  to  form  a  notion  of  how  complete  was 
the  havoc  England  had  wrought  in  all  she  had 
been  taught  to  understand  and  reverence  in  hei 
youth  when  I  tell  them  that  what  she  was  mani' 
festly  trying  not  to  do  was  to  laugh. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

ESSENTIALLY,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out, 
bon  enfant,  I  seldom  let  a  bad  yesterday  spoil 
a  promising  to-day;  and  when  on  peeping  through 
my  curtains  next  morning  I  saw  the  sun  had  turned 
our  forbidding  camp  of  the  night  before  into  a 
bland  warm  place  across  which  birds  darted  sing- 
ing, a  cheery  whistle  formed  itself  on  my  lips  and 
I  became  aware  of  that  inward  satisfaction  our 
neighbours  (to  whom  we  owe,  I  frankly  acknowl- 
edge, much  besides  Alsace  and  Lorraine)  have 
aptly  named  the  joie  de  vivre.  ^ 

Left  to  myself  this  joie  would  undoubtedly 
always  continue  uninterruptedly  throughout  the 
day.  The  greater  then,  say  I,  the  responsibility 
of  those  who  damp  it.  Indeed,  the  responsibility 
resting  on  the  shoulders  of  the  people  who  cross 
one's  path  during  the  day  is  far  more  tremendous 
than  they  in  the  thickness  of  their  skins  imagine. 
I  will  not,  however,  at  present  go  into  that,  having 
gradually  in  the  course  of  writing  this  become 
aware  that  what  I  shall  probably  do  next  will  be 
to  collect  and  embody  all  my  more  metaphysical 
side  into  a  volume  to  itself  with  plenty  of  room 

343 


344  THE  CARAVANERS 

in  it,  and  will  here,  then,  merely  ask  my  hearers 
to  behold  me  whistling  in  my  caravan  on  that 
bright  August  morning,  whistling,  and  ready,  as 
every  sound  man  should  be,  to  leave  the  annoy- 
ances of  yesterday  beneath  their  own  dust  and 
begin  the  new  day  in  the  spirit  of  "Who  knows 
but  before  nightfall  I  shall  have  conquered  the 
world?" 

My  mother  (a  remarkable  woman)  used  to  tell 
me  it  was  a  good  plan  to  start  like  that,  and  indeed 
I  believe  the  results  by  nightfall  would  be  sur- 
prisingly encouraging  if  only  other  people  would 
leave  one  alone.  For,  as  they  meet  you,  each  one 
by  his  behaviour  takes  away  a  further  portion  of 
that  which  in  the  morning  was  so  undimmed. 
Why,  sometimes  just  Edelgard  at  breakfast  has 
by  herself  torn  off  the  whole  stock  of  it  at  once; 
and  generally  by  dinner  there  is  but  little  left. 
It  is  true  that  occasionally  after  dinner  a  fresh 
wave  of  it  sets  in,  but  sleep  absorbs  that  before 
it  has  had  time,  as  the  coUoquialists  would  say, 
so  much  as  to  turn  round. 

My  hearers,  then,  without  my  going  further  into 
this,  must  conceive  me  whistling  and  full  of  French 
joie  in  the  subdued  sunlight  of  the  Elsa*s  curtained 
interior  on  that  bright  summer  morning  at  Frogs* 
Hole  Farm. 

The  floor  sloped,  for  during  the  night  the 
Elsa's    left    hind     wheel     had     sunk     into     an 


THE  CARAVANERS  345 

uncobbled  portion  of  the  yard  where  the  soft  mud 
offered  no  resistance,  but  even  the  prospect  of 
having  to  dig  this  out  before  we  could  start  did 
not  depress  me.  I  thought  I  had  noticed  my  head 
sinking  lower  and  lower  during  my  dreams,  and 
after  having,  half  asleep,  endeavoured  to  correct 
this  impression  by  means  of  rolling  up  my  day 
clothes  and  putting  them  beneath  my  pillow  and 
finding  that  it  made  no  difference,  I  decided  it 
must  be  a  nightmare  and  let  well  alone.  In  the 
morning,  on  waking  after  Edelgard's  departure, 
I  realized  what  had  happened,  and  if  any  of  you 
ever  caravan  you  had  better  see  when  you  go  to 
bed  that  all  four  of  your  wheels  are  on  that  which 
I  called  at  Queenboro'  terra  cotta  (you  will  remem- 
ber I  explained  why  it  was  my  wife  was  unable  to 
be  amused)  or  you  will  have  some  pretty  work  cut 
out  for  you  next  morning. 

Even  this  prospect,  however,  did  not,  as  I  say, 
depress  me.  Dumb  objects  like  caravans  have  no 
such  power,  and  as  nobody  not  dumb  had  yet 
crossed  my  path  I  was  still,  so  to  speak,  untarn- 
ished. I  had  even  made  up  my  mind  to  forget 
the  half-hour  with  Edelgard  the  previous  night 
after  the  ball,  and  since  a  willingness  to  forget  is 
the  same  thing  as  a  willingness  to  forgive  I  think 
you  will  all  agree  that  I  began  that  day  very  well. 

Descending  to  breakfast,  I  experienced  a  slight 
shock  (the  first  breath  of  tarnish)  on  finding  no 


346  THE  CARAVANERS 

one  but  Mrs.  Menzles-Legh  and  the  nondescripts 
there.  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  however,  though  no 
doubt  feeHng  privately  awkward  managed  to 
behave  as  though  nothing  had  happened,  hoped  I 
had  slept  well,  and  brought  my  coffee.  She  did 
not  talk  as  much  as  usual,  but  attended  to  my 
wants  with  an  assiduousness  that  pointed  to  her 
being,  after  all,  ashamed. 

I  inquired  of  her  with  the  dignity  that  means 
determined  distance  where  the  others  were,  and 
she  said  gone  for  a  walk. 

She  remarked  on  the  beauty  of  the  day,  and  I 
replied,  "It  is  indeed." 

She  then  said,  slightly  sighing,  that  if  only 
the  weather  had  been  like  that  from  the  first  the 
tour  would  have  been  so  much  more  enjoyable. 

On  which  I  observed,  with  reserved  yet  easy 
conversation,  that  the  greater  part  still  lay  before 
us,  and  who  knew  but  that  from  then  on  it  was 
not  going  to  be  fine  ? 

At  this  she  looked  at  me  in  silence,  her  head 
poised  slightly  on  one  side,  seriously  and  pen- 
sively, as  she  had  done  among  the  Bodiam  ruins; 
then  opened  her  mouth  as  though  to  speak,  but 
thinking  better  of  it  got  up  instead  and  fetched 
me  more  food. 

At  last,  thought  I,  she  was  learning  the  right 
way  to  set  about  pleasing;  and  I  could  not  pre- 
vent   a    feeling    of   gratification    at    the    success 


THE  CARAVANERS  347 

of  my  method  with  her.  There  was  an  unusually 
good  breakfast  too,  which  increased  this  feeHng 
—  eggs  and  bacon,  a  combined  luxury  not  before 
seen  on  our  table.  The  fledghngs  hung  over  the 
stove  with  heated  cheeks  preparing  relays  of  it 
under  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh's  directions,  who,  while 
she  directed,  held  the  coffee-pot  in  her  arms  to 
keep  it  warm.  She  explained  she  did  so  for  my 
second  cup.  I  might  and  indeed  I  would  have 
suspected  that  she  did  so  not  to  keep  the  coffee 
but  her  arms  warm,  if  it  had  not  been  such  a 
grilling  day.  Heat  quivered  in  a  blue  haze 
over  the  hop-poles  of  the  adjacent  field.  The 
sunless  farmhouse  looked  invitingly  cool  and 
shady  now  that  the  surrounding  hill-tops  were 
one  glare  of  light.  To  hold  warm  coffee  in  one's 
arms  on  such  a  morning  could  not  possibly  show 
anything  but  a  meritorious  desire  to  make 
amends;  and  as  I  am  not  a  man  to  do  what 
the  scriptural  call  quench  the  smoking  flax,  and 
yet  not  a  man  to  forgive  too  quickly  recently 
audacious  ladies,  I  dexterously  mingled  extreme 
politeness  with  an  unshakable  reserve. 

But  I  did  not  care  to  prolong  what  was 
practically  a  tete-a-tete  one  moment  more  than 
necessary,  and  could  not  but  at  last  perceive  in 
her  persistent  replenishings  of  my  cup  and  plate 
the  exactly  contrary  desire  in  the  lady.  So  I  got 
up   with  a   courteously  declining,   "No,   no  —  a 


348  THE  CARAVANERS 

reasonable  man  knows  when  to  leave  off,"  mur- 
mured something  about  seeing  to  things,  bowed, 
and  withdrew. 

Where  I  withdrew  to  was  the  hop-field  and  a  cigar. 

I  lay  down  in  the  shade  of  these  green  promises 
of  beer  in  a  corner  secure  from  observation, 
and  reflected  that  if  the  others  could  waste  time 
taking  supererogatory  exercise  I  might  surely 
be  allowed  an  interval  of  calm;  and  as  there  are 
no  mosquitoes  in  England,  at  least  none  that  I 
ever  saw,  it  really  was  not  unpleasant  for  once  to 
contemplate  nature  from  the  ground.  But  I  must 
confess  I  was  slightly  nettled  by  the  way  the  rest 
of  the  party  had  gone  off  without  waiting  to  see 
whether  I  would  not  like  to  go  too.  At  first, 
busied  by  breakfast,  I  had  not  thought  of  this. 
Presently,  in  the  hop-field,  it  entered  my  mind, 
and  though  I  would  not  have  walked  far  with 
them  it  would  have  been  pleasant  to  let  the  rest 
go  on  ahead  and  remain  myself  in  some  cool 
corner  talking  to  my  gentle  but  lately  so  elusive 
friend. 

I  must  say  also  that  I  felt  no  little  surprise 
that  Edelgard  should  gad  away  in  such  a  manner 
before  our  caravan  had  been  tidied  up  and  after 
what  I  had  said  to  her  the  last  thing  the  night 
before.  Did  she  then  think,  in  her  exuberant 
defiance,  that  I  would  turn  to  and  make  our  beds 
for  her? 


THE  CARAVANERS  349 

My  cigar  being  finished  I  lay  awhile  think- 
ing of  these  things,  fanned  by  a  gentle  breeze. 
Country  sounds,  at  a  distance  to  make  them 
agreeable,  gradually  soothed  ear  and  brain.  A 
cock  crowed  just  far  enough  away.  A  lark 
sang  muffled  by  space.  The  bells  of  an  invisible 
church  —  Raggett's,  probably  —  began  a  deadened 
and  melodious  ringing.  Well,  I  was  not  going; 
I  smiled  as  I  thought  of  Raggett  and  the  eagle, 
forced  to  make  the  best  of  things  by  themselves. 
All  round  me  was  a  hum  and  a  warmth  that  was 
irresistible.  I  did  not  resist  it.  My  head  dropped ; 
my  limbs  relaxed;   and  I  fell  into  a  doze. 

This  doze  was,  as  it  turned  out,  extremely 
a  propos,  for  by  the  time  it  was  over  and  I  had 
once  more  become  conscious,  the  morning  was 
well  advanced  and  the  caravaners  had  had  ample 
time  to  get  back  from  their  walk  and  through 
their  work.  Sauntering  in  among  them  I  found 
everything  ready  for  a  start  except  the  Elsa, 
which,  still  with  its  left  hind  wheel  sunk  in  the 
soil,  was  being  doctored  by  Menzies-Legh,  Jellaby, 
and  old  James. 

"Hullo,"  said  Jellaby,  looking  up  in  the  midst 
of  his  heated  pushing  and  pulling  as  I  appeared, 
**been  enjoying  yourself?" 

Menzies-Legh  did  not  even  look  up,  but  con- 
tinued his  efforts  with  drops  of  moisture  on  his 
saturnine  brow. 


350  THE  CARAVANERS 

Well,  here  my  experience  as  an  artillery  officer 
accustomed  to  getting  gun-carriages  out  of  pre- 
dicaments enabled  me  at  once  to  assume  authority, 
and  drawing  up  a  camp  stool  I  gave  them  direc- 
tions as  they  worked.  They  did  not,  it  is  true, 
listen  much,  thinking  as  English  people  so  invari- 
ably do  that  they  knew  better,  but  by  not  listening 
they  merely  added  another  half-hour  to  their 
labour,  and  as  it  was  fine  and  warm  and  sitting 
superintending  them  much  less  arduous  than 
marching,  I  had  no  real  objection. 

I  told  Menzies-Legh  this  at  the  time,  but  he 
did  not  answer,  so  I  told  him  again  when  we  were 
on  the  road  about  the  half-hour  he  might  have 
saved  if  he  had  worked  on  my  plan.  He  seemed 
to  be  in  a  more  than  usually  bad  temper,  for  he 
only  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked  glum; 
and  my  hearers  will  agree  that  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh's  John  was  not  a  possession  for  England  to 
be  specially  proud  of. 

We  journeyed  that  day  toward  Canterbury,  a 
town  you,  my  friends,  may  or  may  not  have  heard 
of.  That  it  is  an  English  town  I  need  not  say. 
for  if  it  were  not  would  we  have  been  going  there  ? 
And  it  is  chiefly  noted,  I  remembered,  for  its 
archbishop. 

This  gentleman,  I  was  told  by  Jellaby  on 
my  questioning  him,  walks  directly  behind  the 
King's  eldest  son,  and  in  front  of  all  the  nobles 


THE  CARAVANERS  351 

m  processions.  He  is  a  pastor,  but  how  greatly 
glorified!  He  is  the  final  expansion,  the  last  word, 
of  that  which  in  the  bud  was  only  a  curate.  Every 
English  curate,  like  Buonaparte's  soldiers  are  said 
to  have  done,  carries  in  his  handbag  the  mitre  of 
an  archbishop.  I  can  only  regard  it  as  a  blessing 
that  our  Church  has  not  got  them,  for  I  for  one 
would  find  it  difficult  with  this  possibility  in  view 
ever  to  be  really  natural  to  a  curate.  As  it  is  I 
am  perfectly  natural.  With  absolute  simplicity 
I  show  ours  his  place  and  keep  him  to  it;  and  I 
am  equally  simple  with  our  Superintendents  and 
General  Superintendents,  the  nearest  approach  our 
pure  and  frugal  Church  goes  to  bishops  and  arch- 
bishops. There  is  nothing  glorified  about  them. 
They  are  just  respectable  elderly  men,  with  God- 
fearing wives  who  prepare  their  dinner  for  them 
day  by  day.  "And,  Jellaby,"  said  I,  "can  as 
much  be  said  for  the  wives  of  your  archbishops  ?  ** 

"No,"  said  he. 

"Another  point,  then,"  said  I,  with  the  jesting 
manner  one  uses  to  gild  unpalatable  truth,  "on 
which  we  Germans  are  ahead." 

Jeilaby  pushed  his  wisp  of  hair  back  and 
mopped  his  forehead.  From  my  position  at  my 
horse's  head  I  had  called  to  him  as  he  was  walking 
quickly  past  me,  for  I  perceived  he  had  my  poor 
gentle  little  friend  in  tow  and  was  once  again 
inflicting  his  society  on  her.     He  could  not,  how- 


352  THE  CARAVANERS 

ever,  refuse  to  linger  on  my  addressing  him,  and 
I  took  care  to  ask  him  so  many  questions  about 
Canterbury  and  its  ecclesiastical  meaning  that  Frau 
von  Eckthum  was  able  to  have  a  little  rest. 

A  faint  flush  showed  she  understood  and  appre- 
ciated. No  longer  obliged  to  exert  herself  conver- 
sationally, as  I  had  observed  she  was  doing  when 
they  passed,  she  dropped  into  her  usual  calm  and 
merely  listened  attentively  to  all  I  had  to  say.  But 
we  had  hardly  begun  before  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh, 
who  was  in  front,  happened  to  look  round,  and 
seeing  us  immediately  added  her  company  to  what 
was  already  more  than  company  enough,  and  put  a 
stop  to  anything  approaching  real  conversation  by 
herself  holding  forth.  No  one  wanted  to  hear 
her;  least  of  all  myself,  to  whom  she  chiefly 
addressed  her  remarks.  The  others,  indeed,  were 
able  to  presently  slip  away,  which  they  did  to  the 
rear  of  our  column,  I  think,  for  I  did  not  see  them 
again;  but  I,  forced  to  lead  my  horse,  was  helpless. 

I  leave  it  to  you,  my  friends,  to  decide  what 
strictures  should  be  passed  on  such  persistency. 
I  cannot  help  feeling  that  it  was  greatly  to  my 
credit  that  I  managed  to  keep  within  bounds  of 
politeness  under  such  circumstances.  One  thing, 
however,  is  eternally  sure:  the  more  a  lady  pursues, 
the  more  a  gentleman  withdraws,  and  accordingly 
those  ladies  who  throw  feminine  decorum  to  the 
winds  only  defeat  their  own  ends. 


THE  CARAVANERS  353 

I  said  this  —  slightly  veiled  —  to  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  that  morning,  taking  an  opportunity  her 
restless  and  leaping  conversation  offered  to 
administer  the  little  lesson.  No  veils,  however, 
were  thin  enough  for  her  to  see  through,  and 
instead  of  becoming  red  and  startled  she  looked  at 
me  through  her  eyelashes  with  an  air  of  pretended 
innocence  and  said,  "But,  Baron  dear,  what  is 
feminine  decorum?" 

As  though  feminine  decorum  or  modesty  or 
virtue  were  things  that  could  be  explained  in  any 
words  decent  enough  to  fit  them  for  a  gentleman 
to  use  to  a  lady! 

That  was  a  tiring  day.  Canterbury  is  a  tiring 
place;  at  least  it  would  be  if  you  let  it.  I  did 
not,  however,  let  it  tire  me.  And  such  a  hot 
place!  It  is  a  steaming  town  with  the  sun  beating 
down  on  it,  and  full  of  buildings  and  antiquities 
one  is  told  one  must  be  longing  to  look  at.  After 
a  day's  march  in  the  dust  it  is  not  antiquities  one 
longs  for,  and  I  watched  with  some  contempt  the 
same  hypocritical  attitude  take  possession  of  the 
party  that  had  distinguished  it  at  Bodiam. 

We  arrived  there  about  four,  and  Menzies-Legh 
pitched  on  an  exceedingly  ugly  camping  ground 
on  a  slope  just  outside  the  city,  with  villa  resi- 
dences so  near  that  their  inhabitants  could  observe 
us,  if  they  had  telescopes,  from  their  windows.  It 
was  a  field  from  which  the  corn  had  been  cut,  and 


354  THE  CARAVANERS 

the  hard  straw  remaining  hurt  one's  weary  feet; 
nor  had  it  any  advantages  that  I  could  see,  though 
the  others  spoke  of  the  view.  This,  if  you  please, 
consisted  of  the  roofs  of  the  houses  in  the  town 
and  a  cathedral  rising  from  their  midst  in  a  net- 
work of  scaffolding.  I  pointed  this  out  to  them  as 
they  stood  staring,  but  Menzies-Legh  was  quite 
unshaken  in  his  determination  to  stay  just  on  that 
spot,  in  spite  of  there  being  a  railway  line  running 
along  the  bottom  of  the  field  and  a  station  with  all 
its  noises  within  a  stone's  throw.  I  thought  it 
odd  to  have  come  to  a  town  at  all,  for  till  then  the 
party  had  been  unanimous  in  its  desire  to  avoid 
even  villages,  but  on  my  remarking  on  this  they 
murmured  something  about  the  cathedral,  as 
though  the  building  below,  or  rather  the  mass 
of  scaffolding,  were  enough  to  excuse  the  most 
inconsistent  conduct. 

The  heat  of  that  shadeless  stubblefield  was 
indescribable.  It  did  not  possess  a  tree.  At  the 
bottom  was,  as  I  have  said,  the  railway.  At  the 
top,  just  above  where  we  were,  a  market  garden, 
a  thing  of  vegetables,  whose  aim  is  to  have  as 
few  shadows  as  possible.  Languidly  the  party 
made  preparations  for  settling  down.  Languidly 
and  after  a  long  delay  Menzies-Legh  dragged 
out  the  stew-pot.  In  spite  of  the  heat  I  was  as 
hungry  as  a  man  ought  to  be  who,  at  four  o'clock, 
has  not  yet  dined,  and  as  I  watched  the  drooping 


THE  CARAVANERS  355 

caravaners  listlessly  preparing  the  potatoes  and 
cabbages  and  boiled  bacon  that  I  now  knew  so 
very  thoroughly,  this  having  been  our  meal 
(except  once  or  twice  when  we  had  chickens,  or, 
in  extremity,  underdone  sausages)  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  tour,  a  brilliant  thought  illuminated 
the  gloom  of  my  brain:  Why  not  sHp  away 
unnoticed,  and  down  in  the  town  cause  myself  to 
be  served  in  the  dining-room  of  an  hotel  with 
freshly  roasted  meat  and  generous  wine  ? 

Very  cautiously  I  raised  myself  from  the  hard 
hot  stubble. 

Casually  I  glanced  at  the  view. 

With  an  air  of  preoccupation  I  went  behind 
the  Elsa,  the  first  move  toward  freedom,  as 
though  to  fetch  some  accessory  of  the  meal  from 
our  larder. 

"Do  you  want  anything.  Otto?"  asked  my 
officious  and  tactless  wife  trotting  after  me  —  a 
thing  she  never  does  when  I  do  want  anything. 

Naturally  I  was  a  little  snappish:  but  then  if 
she  had  left  me  alone  would  I  have  snapped  ? 
Wives  are  great  forcers  of  faults  upon  a  man. 
So  I  snapped;   and  she  departed,  chidden. 

Looking  about  me,  up  at  the  sky,  and  round 
the  horizon,  as  though  intent  on  thoughts  of 
weather,  I  inconspicuously  edged  toward  the 
market  garden  and  the  gate.  With  a  man  in  the 
garden  searching  for  slugs  I  spent  a  moment  or 


356  THE  CARAVANERS 

two  conversing,  and  then,  a  backward  glance 
having  assured  me  the  caravaners  were  still 
drooping  in  listless  preparation  round  the  stew- 
pot,    I    sauntered,    humming,   through   the  gate. 

Immediately  I  ran  into  Jellaby,  who,  a  bucket  of 
water  in  each  hand,  was  panting  along  the  road. 

"Hullo,  Baron,"  he  gasped;  "enjoying  your- 
self?" 

"I  am  going,"  said  I  with  much  presence  of 
mind  combined  with  the  seriousness  that  repudiates 
any  idea  of  enjoyment,  "to  buy  some  matches. 
Ours  are  running  short." 

"Oh,"  said  he,  plumping  down  his  buckets 
and  fumbling  among  the  folds  of  his  flappy 
clothes,  "I  can  lend  you  some.     Here  you  are." 

And  he  held  out  a  box. 

"Jellaby,"  said  I,  "what  is  one  box  to  a  whole 
—  shall  we  call  it  household  ?  My  wife  requires 
many  matches.  She  is  constantly  striking  them. 
It  is  her  husband's  duty  to  see  that  she  has  enough. 
Keep  yours.     And  farewell." 

And  walking  at  a  pace  that  prohibited  pursuit 
by  a  man  with  buckets  I  left  him. 

I  have  had  so  many  dinners  in  dining-rooms 
since  that  one  at  Canterbury,  ordered  repasts 
without  grease  and  that  kept  hot,  that  the  wonder 
of  it  has  lost  in  my  memory  much  of  its  first 
brightness.  You,  my  hearers,  who  dine  as  I  now 
do  regularly  and  well,  would  hardly  if  I  could  still 


THE  CARAVANERS  357 

describe  be  able  to  enter  into  my  feelings.  I 
found  a  cool  room  in  an  inn  with  the  pleasantly 
un-English  name  Fleur  de  Lys,  and  a  sympathetic 
waiter  who  fell  in  at  once  with  my  views  about 
fresh  air  and  shut  all  the  windows.  I  had  a  news- 
paper, and  I  sipped  a  cognac  while  the  meal  was 
preparing.  I  ordered  everything  on  the  list 
except  bacon,  chickens,  and  sausages.  I  also 
would  not  eat  potatoes,  and  declined,  as  a  vegetable, 
cabbage.  I  drank  much  wine,  full-bodied  and 
generous,  but  I  refused  after  dinner  to  drink  coffee. 

Filled  and  hallowed,  once  more  in  thorough 
tune  with  myself  and  life  and  ready  to  take  any 
further  experiences  the  day  might  bring  with 
unruffled  geniality,  I  left  toward  dusk  the  temple 
that  had  thus  blest  me  (after  debating  within 
myself  whether  it  would  not  be  prudent  having 
regard  to  the  future  in  further  lanes  and  fields  to 
sup  first,  and  regretfully  realizing  that  I  could  not), 
and  leisurely  made  my  way  across  the  street  to 
that  other  temple,  whose  bells  announced  the 
inevitable   service. 

My  decision  to  peep  cautiously  in  and  see 
whether  the  parson  were  alone  before  definitely 
committing  myself  to  a  pew  was  unnecessary,  first 
because  there  were  no  pews  but  a  mighty  empti- 
ness, and  secondly  because,  along  the  dusk  of  this 
emptiness,  groups  of  persons  made  their  way 
to  a  vast  flight  of  steps  dividing  the  place  into 


358  THE  CARAVANERS 

two  and  leading  up  to  a  region,  into  which  they 
disappeared,  of  glimmering  lights.  Too  clever 
now  by  far  to  go  where  there  were  lights  and 
praying  might  be  demanded  of  me,  I  wandered 
on  tiptoe  among  the  gathering  shadows  at  the 
other  end.  It  grew  quickly  darker  among  the 
towering  pillars  and  dim,  painted  windows.  The 
bells  left  off;  the  organ  began  to  rumble  about; 
and  a  distant  voice,  with  a  family  likeness  to  that 
of  Raggett,  sing-songed  something  long.  It  had 
no  ups  and  downs,  no  breaks;  it  was  a  drawn  out 
thread  of  sound,  thin  and  sweet  like  a  trickle  of 
liquid  sugar.  Then  many  voices  took  up  the  sing- 
song, broadening  it  out  from  a  thread  to  a  band. 
Then  came  the  single  trickle  again;  and  so  they 
went  on  alternately,  while  I,  hidden  among  the 
pillars,  listened  very  well  pleased. 

When  the  organ  began,  and  an  endless  sing- 
ing and  repeating  of  the  same  tune,  I  cautiously 
advanced  nearer  in  search  of  something  to  sit  on. 
To  the  right  of  the  steps  I  found  what  I  wanted, 
an  empty  space  in  itself  as  big  as  our  biggest 
church  in  Storchwerder  but  small  in  comparison 
to  the  rest,  with  immense  windows  full  of  the 
painted  glass  that  becomes  so  confused  and  mean- 
ingless in  the  dusk,  no  lights,  and  here  and  there 
a  chair  or  two. 

I  sat  down  at  the  foot  of  a  huge  pillar  in  this 
dark   and   unobserved   corner,   while   the   organ 


THE  CARAVANERS  359 

above  me  and  the  singing  voices  filled  the  spaces 
of  the  roof  with  their  slumber-inciting  repetitions. 
Presently,  as  a  tired  and  comfortable  man  would 
do,  I  fell  asleep,  and  was  only  wakened  by  the 
subdued  murmur  just  round  the  edge  of  the  pillar 
of  two  people  talking,  and  I  instantly,  almost 
before  my  eyes  opened,  recognized  that  it  was 
Frau  von  Eckthum  and  Jellaby. 

They  were  apparently  sitting  on  some  chairs 
I  had  noticed  as  I  came  round  to  the  greater 
obscurity  of  mine.  They  were  so  close  that  it 
was  practically  into  my  ear  that  they  spoke.  The 
singing  was  finished,  and  I  fancy  the  congrega- 
tion had  dispersed,  for  the  organ  was  playing 
softly  and  the  glimmer  of  lights  had  gone  out. 

My  ears  are  as  quick  as  any  man's,  and  I  was 
greatly  amused  at  the  situation.  "Now,"  thought 
I,  "I  shall  hear  what  sort  of  stuff  Jellaby  inflicts 
on  patient  and  inexperienced  ladies." 

It  also  occurred  to  me  that  it  would  be  interest- 
ing to  hear  how  she  talked  to  him,  and  so  discover 
whether  the  libel  were  true  that  except  in  my 
presence  she  chatted  and  was  jocular.  Jocular.? 
Can  anything  be  less  what  one  wishes  in  the  woman 
one  admires .?  Of  course  she  was  not,  and  Mrs. 
Menzies-Legh  was  only  (very  naturally)  jealous. 
I  therefore  sat  quite  still,  and  became  extremely 
alert  and  wide  awake. 

They  were  certainly  not  laughing.     That,  how- 


360  THE  CARAVANERS 

ever,  may  have  been  the  cathedral  —  not  that 
men  of  Jellaby's  stamp  have  even  a  rudimentary 
sense  of  reverence  and  decency  —  but  anyhow 
part  of  the  Hbel  was  disposed  of,  for  the  gentle 
lady  was  serious.  She  was,  it  is  true,  a  good  deal 
more  fluent  than  I  knew  her,  but  she  seemed 
moved  by  some  strong  emotion  which  no  doubt 
accounted  for  that.  What  I  could  not  account 
for  was  her  displaying  emotion  to  a  person  like 
Jellaby.  The  first  thing,  for  instance,  that  I  heard 
her  say  was,  *Tt  is  all  my  fault."  And  her  voice 
vibrated  with  penitence. 

"Oh,  but  it  wasn't,  you  know,"  said  Jellaby. 

"Yes,  it  was.  And  I  feel  I  ought  to  take  a 
double  share  of  the  burden,  and  instead  I  don't 
take  any." 

Burden  ?  What  burden  could  the  tender  lady 
possibly  have  to  bear  that  would  not  gladly  be 
borne  for  her  by  many  a  masculine  shoulder, 
including  mine .?  I  was  about  to  put  my  head 
round  the  pillar's  edge  to  assure  her  of  this  when 
she  began  to  speak  again. 

"I  did  try  —  at  first,"  she  said.  "But  I  —  I 
simply  cant.     So  I  shift  it  on  to  Di." 

Di,  my  friends,  is  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  chris- 
tened with  prophetic  paganism  Diana. 

"An  extremely  sensible  thing  to  do,"  thought 
I,  remembering  the  wiriness  of  Di. 

"She  is  very  wonderful,"  said  Jellaby. 


THE  CARAVANERS  361 

"Yes,"  I  silently  agreed,  "most." 

"She  is  an  angel,"  said  her  (I  suppose  naturally) 
partial  sister,  whose  sentiments  were  besides,  no 
doubt,  at  that  moment  coloured  by  the  surround- 
ings in  which  she  found  herself.  But  I  could 
not  help  being  entertained  by  this  example  of  lov- 
able blindness. 

"It  is  so  sweetly  good  of  her  to  keep  him  off 
us,"  continued  Frau  von  Eckthum.  "She  does 
it  so  kindly.  So  unselfishly.  What  can  it  be 
like  to  have  such  a  husband .? " 

"Ah,"  thought  I,  a  light  illuminating  my  mind, 
"they  are  talking  of  our  friend  John.  Naturally 
his  charming  sister-in-law  cannot  bear  him.  Nor 
should  she  be  called  upon  to  do  so.  To  bear 
her  husband  is  solely  a  wife's  affair." 

"What  can  it  be  like?"  repeated  Frau  von 
Eckthum,  in  the  voice  of  one  vainly  trying  to 
realize  something  beyond  words  bad. 

"I  can't  think,"  said  Jellaby,  basely,  I  thought, 
for  he  professed  much  outward  friendship  for  John. 

"Of  course  she  is  amused  —  in  a  way,"  con- 
tinued Frau  von  Eckthum,  "but  that  sort  of 
amusement  soon  palls,  doesn't  it?" 

"Extraordinarily  soon,"  said  Jellaby. 

"  Before  it  has  so  much  as  begun,"  thought 
I,  recollecting  the  man's  sallow,  solemn  visage. 
But  then  it  is  no  part  of  a  wife's  functions  to  be 
amused. 


362  THE  CARAVANERS 

"And  she  is  really  sorry  for  him,"  said  Frau 
von  Eckthum. 

"Indeed  ?"  thought  I,  entertained  by  the  patron- 
izing attitude  implied. 

"She  says,"  continued  her  gentle  sister,  "that 
his  loneliness,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not,  makes 
her  ache." 

Well,  I  did  not  mind  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  aching, 
so  thought  nothing  definite  there. 

"She  doesn't  want  him  to  notice  we  get  out  of 
his  way  —  she  is  afraid  he  might  be  hurt.  Do  you 
think  he  would  be  ? " 

"No,"said  Jellaby.     "Pure  leather." 

I  agreed,  though  once  again  surprised  at  Jellaby's 
baseness. 

"I  can't  think,"  continued  Frau  von  Eckthum 
—  "I  suppose  it's  because  I  am  so  bad  —  but  I 
really  cannot  think  how  she  can  endure  him,  and 
in  such  doses." 

"He  is  undoubtedly,"  said  Jellaby,  "a  very 
grievous  bounder." 

"What,"  I  wondered,  "is  a  bounder?"  But 
I  applauded  Jellaby's  sentiment  nevertheless,  for 
there  was  no  mistaking  its  nature,  though  his 
baseness  was  really  amazing. 

"  It  must  be  because  Di  has  such  a  vivid  imagina- 
tion," continued  her  sister  musingly.  "She  sees 
what  he  might  have  been,  what  he  probably  was 
meant  to  be " 


THE  CARAVANERS  363 

"And  what  he  would  still  be,"  put  in  Jellaby, 
"if  only  he  would  allow  his  nice  wife  to  influence 
him  a  little.** 

"But  John/*  thought  I,  "in  that  is  right.  Let 
us  be  fair  and  admit  his  good  sides.  A  wife  should 
never,  under  any  circumstances,  be  allowed '* 

Then,  suddenly  struck  by  the  point  of  view, 
by  the  feminine  idea  (Socialists  have  the  minds  of 
women)  of  a  man's  being  restored  to  what  he  was 
primarily  intended  to  be  when  he  issued  newly- 
made  (as  poets  and  parsons  would  say)  from  the 
hands  of  his  Maker  through  the  manipulations  of 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  my  sense  of  humour  played 
me  a  nasty  trick  (for  I  would  have  liked  to  have 
heard  more)  and  I  found  myself  bursting  into  a 
loud  chuckle. 

"What's  that  ?'*  exclaimed  Jellaby,  jumping  up. 

He  soon  saw  what  it  was,  for  I  immediately  put 
my  head  round  the  edge  of  the  pillar. 

They  both  stared  at  me  in  a  strange  alarm. 

"Pray  do  not  suppose,"  I  said,  smiling  reassur- 
ingly, "that  I  am  a  ghost.'* 

They  stared  without  a  word. 

"You  look  as  though  I  might  be.** 

They  went  on  staring. 

"I  could  not  help,  as  I  sat  here,  hearing  what 
you  were  saying.** 

They  stared  as  speechless  as  though  they  had 
been  caught  killing  somebody. 


364  THE  CARAVANERS 

"I  really  am  not  a  spirit,"  said  I,  getting  up. 
"Look  —  do  I  look  like  one ?" 

And  striking  a  match  I  playfully  passed  it 
backward  and  forward  across  my  features. 

But  its  light  at  the  same  time  showed  me  a  flush 
of  the  most  attractive  and  vivid  crimson  on  Frau 
von  Eckthum's  face,  colouring  it  from  her  hair 
to  her  throat.  She  looked  so  beautiful  like  that, 
she  who  was  ordinarily  white,  that  immediately 
lighting  another  I  gazed  at  her  in  undisguised 
admiration. 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said,  holding  it  very  near  her 
while  her  eyes,  fixed  on  mine,  still  seemed  full  of 
superstitious  terror,  "pardon  me,  but  I  must  as 
a  man  and  a  judge  look  at  you." 

Jellaby,  however,  unforgivably  ill-bred  as  ever, 
knocked  the  match  out  of  my  hand  and  stamped 
on  it.  "Look  here,  Baron,"  he  said  with  unusual 
heat,  "I  am  very  sorry  —  as  sorry  as  you  like,  but 
you  really  mustn't  hold  matches  in  front  of  some- 
body's face." 

"Why  sorry,  Jellaby?"  I  inquired  mildly,  for 
I  was  not  going  to  have  a  scene.  "I  do  not  mind 
about  the  match.     I  have  more." 

"Sorry,  of  course,  that  you  should  have 
heard " 

"Every  word,  Jellaby,"  said  L 

"I  tell  you  Tm  frightfully  sorry  —  I  can't  tell 
you  how  sorry " 


THE  CARAVANERS  365 

"You  may  be  assured,"  said  I,  "that  I  will 
be  discreet." 

He  stared,  with  a  face  of  stupid  surprise. 

"Discreet?"  said  he. 

"Discreet,  Jellaby.  And  it  may  be  a  relief 
to  you  to  know,"  I  continued,  "that  I  heartily 
endorse  your  opinion." 

Jellaby*s  mouth  dropped  open. 

"Every  word  of  it." 

Jellaby's  mouth  remained  open. 

"Even  the  word  bounder,  which  I  did  not 
understand  but  which,  I  gathered  from  your 
previous  remarks,  is  a  very  suitable  expression." 

Jellaby's  mouth  remained  open. 

I  waited  a  moment,  then  seeing  that  it  would 
not  shut  and  that  I  had  really  apparently  shattered 
their  nerves  beyond  readjustment  by  so  suddenly 
popping  round  on  them  in  that  ghostly  place,  I 
thought  it  best  to  change  the  subject,  promising 
myself  to  return  to  it  another  time. 

So  I  picked  up  my  hat  and  stick  from  the 
chair  I  had  vacated  —  Jellaby  peered  round  the 
pillar  at  this  piece  of  furniture  with  his  unshut 
mouth  still  denoting  unaccountable  shock  — 
bowed,  and  offered  my  arm  to  Frau  von  Eckthum. 

"It  is  late,"  said  I  with  tender  courtliness, 
"and  I  observe  an  official  approaching  us  with 
keys.  If  we  do  not  return  to  the  camp  we  shall 
have  your  sister  setting  out,  probably  on  angelic 


366  THE  CARAVANERS 

wings"  —  she  started  —  "in  search  of  you.  Let 
me,  dear  lady,  conduct  you  back  to  her.  Nay, 
nay,  you  need  have  no  fears  —  I  really  can  keep 
a  secret." 

With  her  eyes  fixed  on  mine,  and  that  strange 
look  of  perfect  fright  in  them,  she  got  up  slowly 
and  put  her  hand  on  my  proffered  arm. 

I  led  her  away  with  careful  tenderness. 

Jellaby,  I  believe,  followed  in  the  distance. 


CHAPTER  XX 

II FE  is  a  strange  thing,  and  full  of  surprises. 
J  The  day  before,  you  think  you  know  what 
will  happen  on  the  morrow,  and  on  the  morrow 
you  find  you  did  not.  Light  as  you  may  the  candle 
of  your  common  sense,  and  peer  as  you  may  by 
its  shining  into  the  future,  if  you  see  anything 
at  all  it  turns  out  to  have  been,  after  all,  something 
else.  We  are  surrounded  by  tricks,  by  illusions, 
by  fluidities.  Even  when  the  natural  world 
behaves  pretty  much  as  experience  has  led  us  to 
expect,  the  unnatural  world,  by  which  I  mean  (and 
I  say  it  is  a  fair  description)  human  beings,  does 
nothing  of  the  sort.  My  ripe  conclusion,  care- 
fully weighed  and  unattackably  mellow,  is  that  all 
one's  study,  all  one's  thought,  all  one's  experience, 
all  one's  philosophy,  lead  to  this:  that  you  can- 
not account  for  anything.  Do  you,  my  friends, 
interrupt  me  here  with  a  query?  My  answer  to 
it  is:     Wait. 

The  morning  after  the  occurrences  just  des- 
cribed I  overslept  myself,  and  on  emerging  about 
ten  o'clock  in  search  of  what  I  hoped  would  still 
be  breakfast  I  found  the  table  tidily  set  out,  the 

367 


368  THE  CARAVANERS 

stove  alight,  and  keeping  coffee  warm,  ham  in 
slices  on  a  dish,  three  eggs  waiting  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  an  expectant  saucepan,  and  not  a  single 
caravaner  in  sight  except  Menzies-Legh. 

Him,  of  course,  I  now  pitied.  For  to  have  a 
treacherous  friend,  and  a  sister-in  law  of  whom 
you  are  fond  but  who  in  her  heart  cannot  endure 
you,  to  be  under  the  delusion  that  the  one  is 
sincere  and  the  other  loving,  is  to  become  a  fit 
object  for  pity;  and  since  no  one  can  at  the  same 
time  both  pity  and  hate,  I  was  not  nearly  so  much 
annoyed  as  I  otherwise  would  have  been  at  finding 
my  glum-faced  friend  was  to  keep  me  company. 
Annoyed,  did  I  say .?  Why,  I  was  not  annoyed 
at  all.  For  though  I  might  pity  I  was  also  secretly 
amused,  and  further,  the  feeling  that  I  now  had 
a  little  private  understanding  with  Frau  von 
Eckthum  exhilarated  me  into  more  than  my  usual 
share  of  good  humour. 

He  was  sitting  smoking;  and  when  I  appeared, 
fresh,  and  rested,  and  cheery,  round  the  corner  of 
the  Elsa,  he  not  only  immediately  said  good 
morning,  but  added  an  inquiry  as  to  whether  I 
did  not  think  it  a  beautiful  day;  then  he  got  up, 
went  across  to  the  stove,  put  the  eggs  in  the 
saucepan,  and  fetched  the  coff^ee-pot. 

This  was  very  surprising.  I  tell  you,  my 
friends,  the  moods  of  persons  who  caravan  are  as 
many  and  as  incalculable  as  the  grains  of  sand  on 


THE  CARAVANERS  369 

the  seashore.  If  you  doubt  it,  go  and  do  it. 
But  you  cannot  reasonably  doubt  it  after  listening 
to  the  narrative.  Have  I  not  told  you  in  the 
course  of  it  how  the  party's  spirits  were  up  in  the 
skies  one  hour,  and  down  on  the  ground  the  next; 
how  their  gaiety  some  days  at  breakfast  was 
childish  in  its  folly,  and  their  silence  on  others 
depressing;  how  they  quoted  poetry  and  played 
at  Blind  Man's  Buff  in  the  morning,  and  in  the 
afternoon  dragged  their  feet  without  speaking 
through  the  mud;  how  they  talked  far  too  much 
sometimes,  and  then,  when  I  wished  to,  would 
not  talk  at  all;  how  they  were  suddenly  polite  and 
attentive,  and  then  as  suddenly  forgot  I  could 
possibly  want  anything;  how  the  wet  did  not  damp 
their  hilarity  one  day,  and  no  amount  of  sunshine 
coax  it  forth  the  next  ?  But  of  all  their  moods 
this  of  Mcnzies-Legh's  in  the  field  above  Canter- 
bury was  the  one  that  surprised  me  most. 

You  see,  he  was  naturally  so  very  glum.  True 
at  the  beginning  there  had  been  gleams  of  light 
but  they  soon  became  extinguished.  True,  also, 
at  Frogs'  Hole  Farm,  when  demonstrating  truths 
by  means  of  tea  in  glasses,  he  had  been  for  a  short 
while  pleasant  —  only,  however,  to  plunge  imme- 
diately and  all  the  deeper  into  gloom  and  ill- 
temper.  Gloom  and  ill-temper  was  his  normal 
state;  and  to  see  him  attending  to  my  wants,  doing 
it  with  unmistakable  assiduity,  actively  courteous. 


370  THE  CARAVANERS 

was  astonishing,  I  was  astonished.  But  my 
breeding  enabled  me  to  behave  as  though  it  were 
the  most  ordinary  thing  in  the  world,  and  I 
accepted  sugar  from  him  and  allowed  him  to  cut 
my  bread  with  the  blank  expression  on  my  face 
of  him  who  sees  nothing  unusual  or  interesting 
anywhere,  which  is,  I  take  it,  the  expression  of  the 
perfect  gentleman.  When  at  length  my  plate 
was  surrounded  by  specimens  of  all  the  comforts 
available,  and  I  had  begun  to  eat,  he  sat  down 
again,  and  leaning  his  elbow  on  the  table  and  fix- 
ing his  eyes  on  the  city  already  sweltering  in 
heat  and  vapour  below,  resumed  his  pipe. 

A  train  puffed  out  of  the  station  along  the  line 
at  the  bottom  of  our  field,  jerking  up  slow  masses 
of  white  steam  into  the  hot,  motionless  air. 

"There  goes  Jellaby's  train,"  said  Menzies-Legh. 

"Jellaby's  what?"  said  I,  cracking  an  egg. 

"Train,"  said  he. 

"Why,  what  has  he  got  to  do  with  trains?" 
I  asked,  supposing  with  the  vagueness  of  want  of 
interest,  that  Jellaby,  as  well  as  being  a  Socialist, 
was  a  railway  director  and  kept  a  particular  train 
as  another  person  would  keep  a  pet. 

"He's  in  it,"  said  Menzies-Legh. 

I  looked  up  from  my  egg  at  Menzies-Legh's 
profile. 

"What?"  said  I. 

"In  it,"  said  he.    "Obliged  to  go," 


THE  CARAVANERS  371 

"What  —  Jellaby  gone  ?  First  Lord  Sidge,  and 
now  Jellaby  ?" 

Naturally  I  was  surprised,  for  I  had  heard  and 
noticed  nothing  of  this.  Also  the  way  one  after 
the  other  left  without  saying  good-bye  seemed  to 
me  inconsiderate  —  at  least  that:  probably  more. 

"Yes,"  said  Menzies-Legh.  "We  are  —  we 
are  very  sorry.  " 

I  could  not,  however,  honestly  join  in  any 
sorrow  over  Jellaby,  so  merely  remarked  that  the 
party  was  shrinking. 

"Yes,"  said  Menzies-Legh,  "that's  rather  our 
feeling  too." 

"  But  why  has  Jellaby ?" 

"Oh,  well,  you  know,  public  man.  Parliament. 
And  all  that." 

"Does  your  Parliament  reassemble  so  shortly?" 

"Oh,  well,  soon  enough.  You  have  to  prepare, 
you  know.  Collect  your  wits,  and  that  sort  of 
thing." 

"Ah,  yes.  Jellaby  should  not  leave  that  to  the 
last  minute.  But  he  might,"  I  added  with  a  slight 
frown,  "have  taken  leave  of  me  according  to  the 
customs  of  good  society.  Manners  are  manners, 
after  all  is  said  and  done." 

"He  was  in  a  great  hurry,"  said  Menzies-Legh. 

There  was  a  silence,  during  which  Menzies- 
Legh  smoked  and  I  breakfasted.  Once  or  twice 
he  cleared  his  throat  as  though  about  to  say  some- 


372  THE  CARAVANERS  j 

thing,  but  when  I  looked  up  prepared  to  listen 
he  continued  his  pipe  and  his  staring  at  the  city     i 
in  the  sun  below.  i 

"Where  are  the  ladies?"  I  inquired,  when  the 
first  edge  of  my  appetite  had  been  blunted  and     1 
I  had  leisure  to  look  about  me. 

Menzies-Legh  shifted  his  legs,  which  had  been 
crossed. 

"They  went  to  the  station  with  Jellaby  to  see 
the  last  of  him,"  said  he. 

"Indeed.     All  of  them?" 

"I  believe  so." 

Jellaby  then,  though  he  could  not  have  the 
courtesy  to  say  good-bye  to  me,  could  take  a 
prolonged  farewell  of  my  wife  and  of  the  other 
members  of  our  party. 

"He  is  not  what  we  in  our  country  would  call 
a  gentleman,"  I  said,  after  a  silence  during  which 
I  finished  the  third  egg  and  regretted  there  were 
no  more. 

"Who  is  not?"  asked  Menzies-Legh. 

"Jellaby.  No  doubt  the  term  bounder  would 
apply  to  him  quite  as  well  as  to  other  people." 

Menzies-Legh  turned  his  sallow  visage  to  me. 
"He's  a  great  friend  of  mine,"  he  said,  the  famil- 
iar scowl  weighing  down  his  eyebrows. 

I  could  not  help  smiling  and  shaking  my  head 
at  that,  all  I  had  heard  the  night  before  so  very 
fresh  in  my  memory. 


THE  CARAVANERS  373 

"Ah,  my  dear  sir,"  I  said,  "be  careful  how  you 
trust  your  great  friends.  Do  not  give  way  too 
lavishly  to  confidence.  Belief  in  them  is  all  very 
well,  but  it  should  not  go  beyond  the  limits  of 
reason." 

"He's  a  great  friend  of  mine,"  repeated  Men- 
zies-Legh,  raising  his  voice. 

"I  wish  then,"  said  I,  "you  would  tell  me 
what  a  bounder  is." 

He  glowered  at  me  a  moment  from  beneath 
black  brows.     Then  he  said  more  quietly: 

"I'm  not  a  slang  dictionary.  Suppose  we  talk 
seriously." 

"Certainly,"  said  I,  reaching  out  for  the  jam. 

He  cleared  his  throat.  "I  got  a  lot  of  letters 
and  telegrams  last  night,"  he  said. 

"How  did  you  manage  that?"  I  asked. 

"They  were  waiting  for  me  at  the  post-office 
here.  I  had  telegraphed  for  them  to  be  forwarded. 
And  I'm  afraid  —  I'm  sorry,  but  it's  inevitable  — 
we  shall  have  to  be  off." 

"Off  what?"  said  I,  for  a  few  of  the  more 
intimate  English  idioms  still  remained  for  me  to 
master. 

"Off,"  said  he.    "Go.     Leave  this." 

"Oh,"  said  I.  "Well,  we  are  used  to  that. 
This  tour,  my  dear  sir,  is  surely  the  very  essence 
of  what  you  call  being  off.  Where  do  wc  go 
next?    I  trust  to  a  place  with  trees  in  it." 


374     '  THE  CARAVANERS 

"You  don't  understand,  Baron.  We  don't  go 
anywhere  next  as  far  as  the  caravans  are  con- 
cerned.    My  wife  and  I  are  obliged  to  go  home." 

I  was,  of  course,  surprised.  *'We  are,  indeed," 
said  I,  after  a  moment,  *' shrinking  rapidly." 

Then  the  thought  of  being  rid  of  Mrs.  Menzies- 
Legh  and  her  John  and  Jellaby  at,  so  to  speak, 
one  swoop,  and  continuing  the  tour  purged  of 
these  baser  elements  with  the  tender  lady  entirely 
in  our  charge,  made  me  unable  to  repress  a  smile 
of  satisfaction. 

Menzies-Legh  looked  in  his  turn  surprised. 
"I  am  glad,"  he  said,  ''that  you  don't  mind." 

"My  dear  sir,"  I  said  courteously,  "of  course 
I  mind,  and  we  shall  miss  you  and  your  —  er  — 
er  —  "  it  was  difficult  on  the  spur  of  the  moment 
to  find  an  adjective,  but  Frau  von  Eckthum's 
praises  of  her  sister  the  night  before  coming  into 
my  mind  I  popped  in  the  word  suggested  — 
"angelic  wife " 

He  stared  —  ungratefully  I  thought,  consider- 
ing the  effort  it  had  been. 

"But,"  I  continued,  "you  may  be  very  sure 
we  shall  take  every  care  of  your  sister-in-law,  and 
return  her  safe  and  well  into  your  hands  on 
September  the  first,  which  is  the  date  my  contract 
with  the  owner  of  the  Elsa  expires." 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  he,  "I  wasn't  clear.  We  all 
go.      Betti  included,  and  Jumps  and  Jane  too. 


THE  CARAVANERS  375 

Vm  very  sorry/*  he  interrupted,  as  I  opened  my 
mouth,  "very  sorry  indeed  that  things  should  have 
turned  out  so  unexpectedly,  but  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  for  us  to  go  on.     Out  of  the  question." 

And  he  set  his  jaws,  and  shut  his  mouth  into  a 
mere  line  of  opposition  and  finality. 

Well,  my  friends,  what  do  you  say  to  that  ? 
What  do  you  think  of  this  example  of  the  sur- 
prises life  has  in  store  for  one  ?  And,  incidentally, 
what  do  you  think  of  human  nature  ?  Especially 
of  human  nature  when  it  caravans  ?  And  still 
more  especially  of  human  nature  that  is  also 
English  ?  Not  without  reason  do  our  neighbours 
label  the  accursed  island  perfide  Albion.  It  is  true 
I  am  not  clear  about  the  Albion,  but  I  am  very 
clear  about  the  perfide. 

**Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  I  said,  leaning 
toward  him  across  the  table  and  forcing  him  to 
meet  my  gaze,  "that  your  sister-in-law  wishes  to 
go  with  you  ? " 

"She  does,"  said  he. 

"Then,   sir "   I    began,   amazement  and 

indignation  struggling  together  within  me. 

"I  tell  you.  Baron,"  he  interrupted,  "we  are 
very  sorry  things  have  turned  out  like  this.  My 
wife  is  most  genuinely  distressed.  But  she  too 
sees  the  impossibility  —  unforeseen  complications 
demand  we  should  go  home." 

"Sir "  I  again  began. 


Zl(y  THE  CARAVANERS 

"My  dear  Baron,"  he  again  interrupted,  "it 
needn't  in  the  least  interfere  with  you.  Old 
James  will  stay  with  you  if  you  and  the  Baroness 
would  like  to  go  on." 

"Sir,  I  have  paid  for  a  month,  and  have  only 
had  a  week." 

"Well,  go  on  and  finish  your  month.  Nobody 
is  preventing  you." 

"But  I  was  persuaded  to  join  the  tour  on  the 
understanding  that  it  was  a  party  —  that  we  were 
all  to  be  together  —  four  weeks  together " 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  he  (never  had  I  been 
addressed  as  that  before),  "you  talk  as  if  it  were 
a  business  arrangement,  a  buying  and  selling,  as 
if  we  were  bound  by  a  contract,  under  agree- 
ment   " 

"Your  sister-in-law  inveigled  me  into  it,"  I 
exclaimed,  emphasizing  what  I  said  by  regular 
beats  on  the  table  with  my  forefinger,  "on  the 
definite  understanding  that  it  was  to  be  a  party 
and  she  —  was  —  to  be  —  a  —  member  of  it." 

"Pooh,  my  dear  Baron  —  Betti's  definite  under- 
standings. She's  in  love,  and  when  a  woman's 
that  it's  no  earthly  use " 

"What?"  said  I,  startled  for  a  moment  out  of 
all  self-possession. 

"Well?"  he  said,  looking  at  me  in  surprise. 
"Why  not?  She's  young.  Or  do  you  consider 
it  improper  for  widows " 


THE  CARAVANERS  377 

"Improper?  Natural,  sir  —  natural.  How 
long ?" 

"Oh,  before  the  tour  even  started.  And  pro- 
pinquity, seeing  each  other  every  day  —  well,"  he 
finished  suddenly,  "one  mustn't  talk  about  it, 
you  know." 

But  you,  my  friends,  what  do  you  say  to  that  ? 
What  do  you  think  of  this  second  example  of  the 
surprises  life  has  in  store  for  us  ?  I  have  been  in 
two  minds  as  to  whether  I  would  tell  you  this  one 
at  all,  but  to  a  law-abiding  man,  calm  and  objective 
as  I  know  myself  to  be  and  as  you  by  now  must 
know  me  too,  such  an  incident  though  pleasurable 
could  not  in  any  way  affect  or  alter  my  conduct. 
Strictly  Menzies-Legh  was  to  be  censured  for 
mentioning  it;  however  that,  I  suppose,  was 
what  Jellaby  called  the  bounder  coming  out  in 
him,  and  I  perceived  that  whatever  they  exactly 
may  be  bounders  have  their  uses.  I  repeat,  I 
make  no  attempt  to  deny  that  it  was  a  pleasurable 
incident,  and  although  I  am  aware  Storchwerder 
never  liked  her  (chiefly,  I  firmly  believe,  because 
she  would  not  ask  it  to  her  dinners)  I  am  con- 
vinced that  not  one  of  you,  my  friends,  and  I  say 
it  straight  in  your  faces,  but  would  have  been  glad 
to  stand  at  that  moment  in  my  shoes.  I  did 
not  forget  I  was  a  husband,  but  you  can  be  a 
husband  and  yet  remain  a  man.  I  think  I  behaved 
very  creditably.     Only  for  an  instant  was  there 


37^  THE  CARAVANERS 

the  least  little  lapse  from  complete  self-possession. 
Immediately  I  became  and  remained  perfectly 
calm.  Edelgard;  duty;  my  position  in  life;  my 
beliefs;  I  remembered  them  all.  It  also  occurred 
to  me  (but  I  could  not  well  tell  Menzies-Legh) 
that  having  regard  to  the  behaviour  throughout 
the  tour  of  his  wife  it  was  evident  these  things 
ran  in  families.  I  could  not  tell  him,  but  I  felt 
myself  inwardly  in  every  way  tickled.  All  I  could 
do,  indeed  all  I  did  do,  was  to  say  "Strange, 
strange  world,*'  and  get  up  from  my  chair  because 
I  found  myself  unable  to  continue  sitting  in  it. 

"But  what  do  you  propose  to  do?"  Menzies- 
Legh  asked,  after  he  had  watched  me  taking  a 
hasty  turn  or  two  up  and  down  in  the  sun. 

"Behave,"  said  I,  stopping  in  front  of  him, 
"as  an  officer  and  a  gentleman." 

He  stared.  Then  he  got  up  and  said  with  a 
touch  of  impatience  —  a  most  unreliable  person  as 
regards  temper:  "Yes,  yes  —  no  doubt.  But 
what  shall  I  tell  old  James  about  your  caravan  ? 
Are  you  going  on  or  not .?  If  not,  he'll  pilot  it 
home  for  you.  Vm  afraid  I  must  know  soon.  I 
haven't  much  time.     I  must  get  away  to-day." 

"What?    To-day?" 

"I  must.  I'm  very  sorry.  Obliged  to,  you 
know " 

"Andthe  Ailsa?" 

"Oh,  that's  all   arranged.     I   telegraphed  last 


THE  CARAVANERS  379 

night  for  one  of  the  grooms.  He'll  be  down  in  an 
hour  or  two  and  take  charge  of  it  back  to  Pan- 
thers." 

**And  the  Ilsa?'' 

"He'll  take  that  too." 

"No,  my  dear  sir,"  said  I  firmly.  "You  leave 
the  Ilsa  in  our  charge  —  it  and  its  contents." 

"Eh?"  said  he. 

"It  and  its  contents  —  human  and  otherwise." 

"Nonsense,  Baron.  What  on  earth  would  you 
do  with  Jane  and  Jumps  ^  They're  going  up 
to  town  with  me  by  train.  And  my  wife  and 
Betti  —  oh,  yes,  by  the  way,  my  wife  gave  me 
instructions  to  tell  you  how  very  sorry  she  was  not 
to  be  able  to  say  good-bye  to  you.  I  assure  you 
she  was  really  greatly  distressed,  but  she  and 
Betti  are  motoring  up  to  London  and  felt  they 
ought  to  start  as  early  as  possible " 

"  But  —  motoring  ?  You  said  they  had  gone 
to  the  sta " 

"So  they  did.  They  saw  Jellaby  off,  and  then 
were  picked  up  by  a  motor  I  ordered  for  them 
last  night  in  the  town,  and  went  straight  from 
there " 

I  heard  no  more.  He  went  on  speaking,  but 
I  heard  no  more.  The  series  of  surprises  had 
done  their  work,  and  I  could  attend  to  nothing 
further.  I  believe  he  continued  to  express  regret 
and  offer  advice,  but  what  he  said  fell  on  my  ear 


380  THE  CARAVANERS 

with  the  indifferent  trickhng  of  water  when  one  is 
not  thirsty.  At  first  anger,  keen  resentment,  and 
disappointment  surged  within  me,  for  why,  I 
asked  myself,  did  she  not  say  good-bye  ?  I 
walked  up  and  down  on  the  hot  stubble,  my 
hands  deep  in  my  pockets  and  myself  deep  in 
conflicting  emotions,  while  Menzies-Legh  sup- 
posing I  was  listening  regretted  and  advised, 
asking  myself  why  she  did  not  say  good-bye. 
Then,  gradually,  I  could  not  but  see  that  here 
was  tact,  here  was  delicacy,  the  right  feeling  of  the 
truly  feminine  woman,  and  began  to  admire  her 
all  the  more  because  she  had  not  said  it.  By 
degrees  composure  stole  upon  me.  Reason 
returned  to  my  assistance.  I  could  think,  arrange, 
decide.  And  before  Edelgard  came  back  with  the 
two  children,  mere  heated  debris  of  that  which  had 
lately  been  so  complete,  what  I  had  decided  with 
the  clear-headed  rapidity  of  the  practical  and 
sensible  man  was  to  give  up  the  Elsa,  lose  my 
money,  and  go  home.  Home  after  all  is  the  best 
place  when  life  begins  to  wobble;  and  home  in 
this  case  was  very  near  the  Eckthum  property  — 
I  only  had  to  borrow  a  vehicle,  or  even  in  extremity 
take  a  droschke,  and  there  I  was.  There  too 
the  delightful  lady  must  sooner  or  later  be,  and 
I  would  at  least  see  her  from  time  to  time,  whereas 
in  England  among  her  English  relations  she  was 
entirely  and  hopelessly  cut  off. 


THE  CARAVANERS  381 

Thus  it  was,  my  friends,  that  I  did  not  see 
Frau  von  Eckthum  again.  Thus  it  was  our 
caravaning  came  to  an  untimely  end. 

You  can  figure  to  yourselves  what  kind  of 
reflections  a  man  inclined  to  philosophize  would 
reflect  as  the  reduced  party  hastily  packed,  in  the 
heat  and  glare  of  the  summer  morning,  that  which 
they  had  unpacked  a  week  previously  amid  howl- 
ing winds  and  hail  showers  in  the  yard  at  Panthers. 
Nature  then  had  frowned,  but  vainly,  on  our 
merriment.  Nature  now  was  smiling,  equally 
vainly  on  our  fragments.  One  brief  week;  and 
what  had  happened  ?  Rather,  I  should  say,  what 
had  not  happened  ? 

On  the  stubble  I  walked  up  and  down  lost 
in  reflection,  while  Edelgard,  helped  (ofl^ciously 
I  thought,  but  I  did  not  care  enough  to  mind) 
by  Menzies-Legh,  stuffed  our  belongings  into 
bags.  She  had  aSked  no  questions.  If  she  had 
I  would  not  have  answered  them,  being  little 
in  the  mood  as  you  can  imagine  to  put  up  with 
wives.  I  just  told  her,  on  her  return  from  seeing 
Jellaby  off^,  of  my  decision  to  cross  by  that  night's 
boat,  and  bade  her  get  our  things  together. 
She  said  nothing,  but  at  once  began  to  pack.  She 
did  not  even  inquire  why  we  were  not  going  to 
look  at  London  first,  as  we  had  originally  planned. 
London  ?  Who  cared  for  London  ?  My  mood 
was  not  one  in  which  a  man  bothers  about  London. 


382  THE  CARAVANERS 

With  reference  to  that  city  it  can  best  be  described 
by  the  single  monosyllable  Tcha. 

I  will  not  linger  over  the  packing,  or  relate 
how  when  it  was  finished  Edelgard  indulged  in 
a  prolonged  farewell  (with  embraces,  if  you  please) 
of  the  two  uninteresting  fledglings,  in  a  fervent 
shaking  of  both  Menzies-Legh's  hands  combined 
with  an  invitation  —  I  heard  it  —  to  stay  with  us 
in  Storchwerder,  and  the  pressing  upon  old  James 
in  a  remote  corner  of  something  that  looked 
suspiciously  like  a  portion  of  her  dress-allowance; 
or  how  she  then  set  out  by  my  side  for  the  station 
steeped  in  that  which  we  call  Ahschiedsstimmung, 
old  James  preceding  us  with  our  luggage  while 
the  others  took  care  for  the  last  time  of  the  camp ; 
or  with  what  abandonment  of  apparent  affectionate 
regret  she  hung  herself  out  of  the  train  window 
as  we  presently  passed  along  the  bottom  of  the 
field  and  waved  her  handkerchief.  Such  rankness 
of  sentiment  could  only  make  me  shrug  my 
shoulders,  filled  as  I  was  by  my  own  absorbing 
thoughts. 

I  did  glance  up,  though,  and  there  on  the 
stubble,  surrounded  by  every  sort  of  litter,  stood 
the  three  familiar  brown  vehicles  blistering  in  the 
sun,  with  Menzies-Legh  and  the  fledglings  knee- 
deep  in  straw  and  saucepans  and  bags  and  other 
forlorn  discomforts,  watching  us  depart. 

Strange   how   alien   the   whole   thing   seemed. 


THE  CARAVANERS  383 

how  little  connection  it  seemed  to  have  with  me 
now  that  the  sparkling  bubbles  (if  I  may  refer 
to  Frau  von  Eckthum  as  bubbles)  had  disappeared 
and  only  the  dregs  were  left.  I  could  not  help 
feeling  glad,  as  I  raised  my  hat  in  courteous 
acknowledgment  of  the  frantic  wavings  of  the 
fledglings,  that  I  was  finally  out  of  all  the  mess. 

Menzies-Legh  gravely  returned  my  salute;  our 
train  rounded  a  curve;  and  camp  and  caravaners 
disappeared  at  once  and  forever  into  the  unre- 
callable  past. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THUS  our  caravaning  came  to  an  end. 
I  could  hardly  believe  it  when  I  thought 
how  at  that  hour  of  the  day  before  I  was  lying 
beneath  the  hop-poles  of  Frogs'  Hole  Farm  with 
the  greater  part,  as  I  supposed,  of  the  tour  before 
me;  I  could  hardly  believe  that  here  we  were  again, 
Edelgard  and  I,  tete-a-tete  in  a  railway  carriage 
and  with  a  future  of,  if  I  may  coin  a  word,  tete-a- 
teteness  stretching  uninterruptedly  ahead  as  far  as 
imagination  could  be  induced  to  look.  And  not 
only  just  ordinary  tete-a-teteness,  but  with  the  com- 
plication of  one  of  the  tetes,  so  to  speak,  being 
rankly  rebellious  and  unwifely.  How  long  would 
it  take,  I  wondered,  glancing  at  her  as  she  sat  in 
the  corner  opposite  me,  to  bring  her  back  to  the 
reason  in  which  she  used  before  we  came  to 
England  to  take  delight  ? 

I  glanced  at  her,  and  I  found  she  was  looking 
at  me;  and  immediately  on  catching  my  eye  she 
leaned  forward  and  said: 

"Otto,  what  was  it  you  did  .?" 

They  were  the  first  words  she  had  spoken  to 
me  that  day,  and  very  naturally  failing  to  see  any 
,  384 


THE  CARAVANERS  385 

point  in  them  I  requested  her  not  to  be  subtle, 
which  is  courteous  for  senseless. 

"Why,"  said  she,  not  heeding  this  warning,  "did 
the  party  break  up  ?    What  was  it  you  did  ? " 

Were  there  ever  such  questions  ?  But  I  recol- 
lected she  could  not  dream  how  things  really 
were,  and  therefore  was  not  as  much  put  out  as  I 
would  otherwise  have  been  at  the  characteristically 
wifely  fashion  of  at  once  when  anything  seemed 
to  be  going  wrong  attributing  it  to  her  husband. 

I  therefore  good-humouredly  applied  the  Aunt 
Bockhiigel  remedy  to  her,  and  was  willing  to 
leave  it  at  that  if  she  had  let  me.  She,  however, 
preferred  to  quarrel.  Without  the  least  attempt 
to  change  the  Bockhiigel  face  she  said,  "My  dear 
Otto  —  poor  Aunt  Bockhiigel.  Won't  we  leave 
her  in  peace  ?     But  tell  me  what  it  was  you  did." 

Then  I  became  vexed,  for  really  the  assump- 
tion of  superiority,  of  the  right  to  criticize  and 
blame,  went  further  than  a  reasonable  man  can 
permit.  What  I  said  as  we  journeyed  up  to 
London  I  will  not  here  repeat;  it  has  been  said 
before  and  will  be  said  often  enough  again  so 
long  as  husbands  have  to  have  wives:  but  how 
d!bout  the  responsibility  resting  on  the  wives  ?  I 
remembered  the  cheerful  mood  I  had  been  in  on 
getting  up,  and  felt  no  small  degree  of  resentment 
at  the  manner  in  which  my  wife  was  trying  to 
wipe  it  out.     Give  me  a  chance,  and  I  am  the 


386  THE  CARAVANERS 

kindest  of  men ;  take  away  my  chance,  and  what 
can  I  do  ? 

And  so,  my  friends,  as  it  were  with  a  wrangle 
ended  our  sojourn  on  British  soil.  I  lay  down 
my  pen,  and  become  lost  in  many  reflections  as  I 
think  of  all  these  things.  Long  ago  have  we 
settled  down  again  to  our  ordinary  Storchwerder 
life,  with  an  Emilie  instead  of  a  Clothilde  in  the 
kitchen.  Long  ago  we  paid  our  calls  announcing 
to  our  large  circle  that  we  were  back.  We  have 
taken  up  the  threads  of  duty,  we  have  resumed 
regulated  existence;  and  gradually  as  the  weeks 
melt  into  months  and  the  influence  of  Storchwerder 
presses  more  heavily  upon  her,  I  have  observed 
that  my  wife  shows  an  increasing  tendency  once 
more  to  find  her  level.  I  need  not  have  worried; 
I  need  not  have  wondered  how  I  could  bring 
her  to  reason.  Storchwerder  is  doing  it.  Its 
atmosphere  and  associations  are  very  potent. 
They  are  being,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  too  strong 
for  Edelgard.  After  a  few  preliminary  convulsions 
she  began  to  cook  my  meals  and  look  after  my 
welfare  as  dutifully  as  before,  and  other  effects  no 
doubt  will  follow.  At  present  she  is  more  silent 
than  before  the  tour,  and  does  not  laugh  as  readily 
as  she  used  when  I  chance  to  be  in  a  jesting  mood; 
also  at  times  a  British  microbe  that  has  escaped 
the  vigilance  of  those  beneficent  little  creatures 
Science  tells  us  are  in  our  blood  on  the  alert  to 


THE  CARAVANERS  387 

devour  intrusive  foreigners  crops  up  and  causes 
her  to  comment  on  my  sayings  and  doings  rather 
a  la  Mrs.  Menzies-Legh,  but  I  frown  her  down 
or  apply  the  Aunt  Bockhiigel,  and  in  another  few 
months  I  trust  all  will  be  exactly  as  it  used  to 
be.  I  myself  am  exactly  as  I  used  to  be  —  a  plain, 
outspoken,  patriotic,  Christian  gentleman,  going 
steadily  along  the  path  of  duty,  neither  looking  to 
the  right  nor  to  the  left  (if  I  did  I  should  not  see 
Frau  von  Eckthum  for  she  is  still  in  England), 
and  using  my  humble  abilities  to  do  what  I  can 
for  the  glory  of  my  country  and  my  Emperor. 

And  now  having  finished  the  narrative  there 
is  nothing  more  to  do  but  to  buy  a  red  pencil  and 
put  marks  on  it.  Many,  I  fear,  will  be  those 
marks.  Unfortunate  is  the  fact  that  you  cannot 
be  sincere  without  at  the  same  time  being  indis- 
creet. But  I  trust  that  what  remains  will  be 
treated  by  my  hearers  with  the  indulgence  due 
to  a  man  who  has  only  been  desirous  of  telling 
the  whole  truth,  or  in  other  words  (and  which 
amount,  I  take  it,  to  precisely  the  same  thing)  of 
concealing  nothing. 


POST  SCRIPTUM 

A  TERRIBLE  thing  has  happened. 
Finished  a  week  ago  and  the  invitations 
to  come  and  Hsten  already  in  the  post,  with  the  flat 
being  cleaned  in  preparation  and  beer  and  sand- 
wiches almost,  as  it  were,  on  the  threshold,  I  have 
been  obliged  to  take  my  manuscript  once  more 
out  of  the  locked  drawer  which  conceals  it  from 
Edelgard's  eyes  in  order  to  record  a  most  lament- 
able occurrence. 

My  wife  received  a  letter  this  morning  from 
Mrs.  Menzies-Legh  informing  her  that  Frau  von 
Eckthum  is  about  to  be  married  to  Jellaby. 

No  words  can  express  the  shock  this  has  given 
me.  No  words  can  express  my  horror  at  such  a 
union.  Left  to  herself,  helpless  in  the  clutches 
of  her  English  relatives,  the  gentle  creature's  very 
virtues  —  her  pliability,  her  tender  womanliness  — 
have  become  the  means  of  bringing  about  the 
catastrophe.  She  was  influenced,  persuaded,  a 
prey.  It  is  six  months  since  she  was  handed  over 
entirely  to  the  Menzies-Leghs,  six  months  of  no 
doubt  steady  resistance,  ending  probably  in  her 
health  breaking  down  and  in  her  giving  in.  It 
t  388 


THE  CARAVANERS  .    389 

hardly  bears  thinking  of.  A  Briton.  A  SociaHst. 
A  man  in  flannel.  No  family.  No  money.  And 
the  most  terrible  opinions.  My  shock  and  horror 
are  so  great,  so  profound,  that  I  have  cancelled 
the  invitations  and  will  lock  this  up  perhaps  for- 
ever, certainly  for  some  weeks;  for  how  could  I 
possibly  read  aloud  the  story  of  our  harmonious 
and  delightful  intercourse  with  the  tragic  sequel 
public  knowledge .? 

And  my  wife,  when  she  read  the  letter  at  break- 
fast, clapped  her  hands  and  cried,  "Isn't  it  splendid 
—  oh,  Otto,  aren't  you  glad  ? " 

THE    END 


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